A Puzzle Unsolved: Lost
by The dude with no life
Summary: Everyone knows all about the great Professor Layton and his apprentice Luke Triton. But Luke felt quite sad when they were separated. Now, the Professor is missing. The only lead: A cryptic letter mentioning a connection to the SSBs. The only method: Registration, and a whole lotta puzzles. And the mansion's full of them after a prank gone very wrong. Set after the events of UF.
1. Ch 1: Ace Apprentice

Author's Note:

Bet you didn't see this coming. A fanfic about Luke joining the Smashers. This is meant to take place a few years after the Unwound Future. Now, all italics are Luke's thoughts, unless otherwise specified. Assuming italics show up, anyway.

Chapter 1: Luke Triton, Ace Smasher 

"Mom, I have to do this: it's the only lead I have on the Professor's whereabouts," Luke said, frantically packing up his belongings strewn about the room, clutching onto two of his currently dearest belongings: a letter from Professor Layton, and a letter of registration for Luke Triton. Registration into the Super Smash Bros, specifically. He figured that at least one of the other smashers could help.

"It's far too risky, and you could get hurt. I mean, honestly, do you even know who you'd be FIGHTING? Fighting, for Pete's sake. You scarcely hurt a fly. And Flora also got in? This is insane," Luke's mom was not so optimistic about Luke's planned journey. "Quite a few use fire, some of 'em use swords, and bombs, and bows and arrows, and other weapons you don't want to be hit by."

"There's magic to make sure we don't get hurt, and make it at least a somewhat fair fight, Mom," Luke said, getting his suitcases and his teddy bear, the last thing to pack.

"Fine, you can go, but you better write home everyday, mister," Luke's mom continued. I could continue with this cliche Mom talk, but I won't. You get the picture.

After hugs and kisses and bittersweet goodbyes, Luke started walking out the door, adjusting his hat and satchel, getting on the bus that would take him to his new home.

"Luke, you were also accepted," Flora said, getting ecstatic at the news. "We just have a few problems now."

"Like what, exactly?" Luke asked, feeling confident that he had everything he needed.

"How are we supposed to fight? I know I'm an assist trophy, but what about you?" Flora said, her tone getting worried.

"With my animal friends, of course. I also have a few puzzles up my sleeve that will give me tools to use in battle," Luke said, knowing there was nothing to be worried about.

"I hear the Smash Mansion is quite chaotic. It actually makes me kind of glad that I'm just staying in town, you know," Flora asked.

"Yeah," Luke said, noting the other passenger on the bus. "Hey, who are you, sir," Luke asked, feeling embarrassed for not noticing the lone person until now.

"Name's Robin, and you are," The cloaked figure said.

"Luke Triton, ace apprentice, at your service," Luke said, trying not to break down in front of Flora and this mysterious stranger.

"Ah, my condolences, Luke," Robin said, realizing that it must have been hard on the young gentleman.

"Whenever someone says that, it always makes me want to find the Professor even more just to prove them wrong," Luke said.

"I see. Do you know any of the other smashers?" Robin said, trying to change the subject.

"You're also a smasher, then, Robin," Flora said, "I've heard of some of them, but I don't know any of them. I know there's the Mario bros, a Pikachu, well, maybe I only heard about them from your conversation."

"You two also applying?" Robin asked, as another cloaked figure, this one female, came over and joined the conversation.

"Well, I am, but Flora already got accepted as an assist trophy." Luke stated, glancing over at the new figure, "And who might you be?"

"Robin," The second Robin said.

"We're both the same person from the separate universes," They said in perfect synchronization.

"Crikey, and I thought my family was complicated," Luke said, feeling quite flabbergasted.

"So, how do you fight, Luke?" Male Robin asked, "With a sword? with your fists? You've gotta bring something special to the table to get accepted. You know, like our sword and tome combo."

"I find swords to be quite generic, actually. No, I fight with my mind," Luke said.

"So, you are secretly telepathic. Told you so, bro," Female Robin said, smirking.

"No, I fight with puzzles, and with my animal friends," Luke said, "so, is that special or what?"

"Certainly unique, but how could that possibly work out?" Both Robins asked.

"You'll see," Luke said.

When the bus finally arrived, Luke started worrying. _What if I'm not accepted? What if puzzles really don't work out very well for fighting? No, this'll work out. It has to. For the Professor._

Luke took a look at the enormous mansion, and almost doubled over from fear. _Confidence is key._ _Just be a gentleman, and everything will go as it should._

"Come this way, if you're applying," Someone called out, drawing the attention of dozens of people, "I see you, over there. Impressive, isn't it? Well, you can admire it later. First off, all applicants have a meeting scheduled with Master Hand."

The man, now identified as Mario, lead the group inside, through a number of twisting halls and square shaped rooms, to a what looked to be a dining room.

"This is where you will all be waiting for your turn to talk with Master Hand, okay?" Mario said, starting to walk off.

"Next, Luke Triton," A booming voice filled the dining room with far too much noise to be human. Of that, Luke was certain.

"So, Luke Triton, what makes you think you can make it in the ranks of the Super Smash Brothers?"

"I have to… For the Professor," Luke said, "And if I don't, then I won't be able to find the Professor. So there is no way I am taking no for an answer."

"Quite a bit of enthusiasm on your side of the table. Now, what exactly would you bring to a fight with your potential opponents?"

"My mind, my friends, and my puzzles."

"Doesn't sound very effective if you ask me. But then again, neither did bug nets, golf clubs, nap time, or a whistle. I'll need a demonstration… You already got yourself into a fight, and it won't be easy."

"I'll do it. Now who is my opponent." _No, assess the situation before you walk into it._

"Hmm, I think you will fight Red. Winner stays, and loser goes. Now, let's get you two to the battlefield.

 _But I highly doubt Charizard will, now that it has a mega evolution._

(Skip to battle)

"Okay, this will be a stock battle, with three lives each. Red, no substitutions. Understood? Good. Now, battle begin."

"Okay, guys, this should be easy. Squirtle, I choose you."

Luke started freaking out upon realizing he had no idea how to fight. He started backing up to the edge, and then realizing that Final Destination Stage would be his final destination.

 _No, I've got this._

Upon hearing something, Squirtle started charging in its shell, hurtling at Luke.

"Skull bash," The Squirtle cried.

"Nice try, but I won't fall for that," Luke said, making Red's jaw drop.

"What?"

Luke jumped up, and looked down, surprised at how high he had jumped. Squirtle stopped in its tracks, using skull bash on the ground to launch itself up into Luke.

"Aieeeee," Luke cried out, going up even higher from the blow. "Fine then, be that way. Take this," He yelled, taking off his hat, thinking of a puzzle which made his hat grow even bigger than he was, and made a giant tetris style block fall out of is hat, launching Luke up even further. "So it does work, then. That is very much good."

It wasn't so good for Squirtle, however, who was smashed into the ground by the block, and then bounced off the ground.

"What in the world was that? Okay, Squirtle, use water gun," Red yelled. Then, he dragged his foot along the ground, as if dancing.

The loyal Squirtle did as commanded, and got a direct hit. Whilst Luke was getting up, the Squirtle turned around, got into its shell, and used water gun again to propel itself.

"No you don't," Luke said after hearing the Pokémon say its move. He got out his toy robot from Miracle Mask, cranked it up, and let it go. It walked straight into the charging Squirtle, and the collision caused it to go into Squirtle's shell, where it exploded. This sent Squirtle hurtling off the platform, and into the inky gray.

"KO, Luke," An announcer boomed, his voice seemingly coming from nowhere, yet echoing off of the same nothingness from which it came.

"You did good, Squirtle, but next time we didn't know what to expect. Ivysaur, let's win this," Red yelled.

"You're going down, kid," Ivysaur hissed.

"I think not," Luke replied, again in his opponent's tongue.

"Come on, 3, I need help," Luke said, talking in bunny speak.

The rabbit appeared, and Luke took hold of it. Luke flung the bunny, who then did a flying kick into Ivysaur, while it hopelessly tried to snatch it out of the air with vine whip. It failed, as the offender disappeared into thin air.

 _Yes. Okay, so that one has far too much junk in its trunk then._ At that moment, Luke's own trunk appeared, and it was about to burst open. _No, they don't need to see any of my stuff._ He started trying to seal his trunk shut, but he knew it was going to blow up in his face eventually.

"While he's occupied, hit 'im with a seed bomb from above," Red called out, prompting Ivysaur to do just that. As the green dino-plant hybrid closed in, Luke ducked under the seed bomb, letting go of his trunk. _How did that happen? I didn't even see that._ Ivysaur was not so lucky, though. It and Luke found out the hard way that Luke's trunk was one of the mightiest forces in the universe, as it exploded, launching Ivysaur off the platform, as well as all of Luke's belongings from his trunk.

"Use vine whip." Ivysaur was just able to reach the platform with vine whip, and got back up. "Nice move. You really are quite good at this, Luke." Luke blushed at the praise. "But we're only just getting started. Ivysaur, get the assist trophy quickly." Ivysaur got to it first, as Luke didn't even notice it."

Out of all the people to pop up, it was Flora. No one knew what she would do, and it was quite amazing. She made a mini model of the tower from _Curious Village_ appear and then parts of it flew off to the side, in random directions. The tower itself was about as tall as a two story house, with a chimney. One of the parts flew directly into Luke, sending him flying off the edge.

"KO, Red."

"That was not very nice, Flora," Luke reprimanded the girl as he reappeared on the stage.

"Sorry, but it was kind of what I'm supposed to do. Ivysaur summoned me, so my attacks would hurt you and not him, because that's how mine work."

Luke then got the toy Laytonmobile from Unwound future, and let it fly. Literally. It flew in almost random formations, but eventually flew into the ground, sparked, and exploded into a cloud of smoke, having broken down, then finally disappeared, after launching Ivysaur in front of Luke, who promptly smacked it with his satchel.

"That felt unusually good," Luke commented, as Ivysaur soared over the edge.

"KO, Luke," The announcer's voice boomed.

"Nice job, kid, but I'm here to stay. This ends now. Go, Charizard," Red said, eyes burning with the flames of admiration and determination.

"Thanks, but there's no way I'm going down now. Not after coming so far, and learning so much," Luke said, his own internal fire burning just as bright.

As Charizard appeared, it sized up its opponent, and scoffed. "You took down both Squirtle and Ivysaur. Were they taking a nap or something? Oh, this should be easy," Charizard said quite loudly, having assumed that only the Pokémon spectators would know what it was saying."

"No, but they certainly did wake up when we talked with each other," Luke said, causing Charizard to step back in shock. "Yeah, that was their reaction too, I believe."

"You spoke in my tongue, impossible," Charizard said, still feeling shocked.

"Use fly, and stay up in the air where Luke can't get to you, then bombard him with flamethrower," Red ordered. Charizard obliged, and Luke quickly came up with a plan.

 _Come on, Patricia, I need you to make a special delivery for me_. At that, Luke's parrot friend from Unwound Future appeared carrying an anvil, far above both Luke and Charizard, and bounced along ropes that had formed out of the air. _Now_. The anvil dropped, and hit Charizard back down to the platform, as a smash ball appeared, on the other side of the platform. Patricia flew over to said smash ball, grabbed it, and flew it over to Luke, and disappeared.

"Use flamethrower on Luke, then get the smash ball."

 _If only I had a giant nut, then I could roll it like the squirrels did._ The magic of the arena obliged, and roll it he did. It shielded Luke from the flames, and crushed Charizard, throwing it back. Luke quickly ran over to the smash ball and smacked it repeatedly with his satchel, eventually breaking it. He felt an aura of power wash over him, and almost fell back in surprise. _So this is what it feels like then, eh? I wonder what my final smash will be like._

Charizard was charging, desperate to stop the powerful move, but Luke was quicker. As he was thinking, he started his puzzle solved pose, (You know, where it flashes three poses when you answer a puzzle) and pointed, having a eureka moment. He meant to point up, but instead pointed directly in front of him. (Like Layton's puzzle solved pose) This made Charizard fall back, then launched the dragon-esque fire type off the stage, into the inky distance.

"KO, Luke. Battle over. The winner is… Luke Triton!" The announcer boomed, as the two opponents were warped back to Master Hand's office.

Master Hand started speaking, "Puzzles really do work out as a weapon. Quite astounding, but a promise is a promise. I'm sorry Red, but you have to go. However, I will ask that Charizard stay. Luke Triton, if you so desire, and this is your last chance to decline, then you are officially one of the new Super Smash Bros."

Luke thought it over one last time for a few minutes, then responded.

"I accept."

Author's Notes:

What do you think of them puzzles? Screw Layton, we have a whole new brand of fighting in the Professor Layton series, and its Luke style. But seriously, what do you think of Luke's fighting style? If you have any suggestions for puzzles to be used as attacks, review or PM me. Next chapter will be showing some other elimination rounds for other smashers. (Luke will be watching, of course.)

Buh-Bye.


	2. Ch 2: Holding On to the Past

A Puzzle Unsolved: 2

Author's Notes:

A Puzzle Unsolved: Chapter 2: Holding on to the Past

"Oh, wake up already. I can't believe your capacity for sleeping through loud noises," Popo started, as he and all the other smashers that didn't make it to the next game weren't technically kicked out of the mansion. He was shaking Luke rather vigorously, until Ness finally came over and held a little fire by Luke. This finally woke the boy up. The smashers were grouped into rooms by age, or at least by children and adults. Gender didn't matter. Only age. It was four to a room. Except for Red. He and his Pokémon shared a room with Olimar. The other Pokémon were in another room. There were four floors that the smashers were staying in, with ten rooms each.

"You could've just opened the blinds, you know," Luke complained, making Ness face palm, as he had just walked in. "All it takes is the light to wake me up."

Popo groaned, thinking of how he didn't think to turn on a lamp. The ice climber had tried shaking, ice water, (Which was his specialty) whacking Luke with his hammer, and finally, a foghorn. The last one is what woke Ness up.

"How are the others still asleep?" Luke asked, moving to the closed curtain.

"No time, Luke. We need to get to breakfast now. We're late, and trust me, you do not want to miss out on the pancakes," Popo said, pushing Luke away from the window and out the door.

"Can't I at least get dressed?" Luke was still in his jammies, and he didn't want to leave that kind of an impression on the other smashers.

"No time, now let's go." Ness was grinning devilishly, as phase one of their prank had started. Luke could never solve that puzzle. He would never be able to get out of that pitfall by the time the others got up. He hid the grin at the masterfully planned prank as Luke looked over for some sign as to what was going on. Ness made sure it looked like he was already leaving so Luke wouldn't get suspicious. It was a good thing that they had discussed their plan before trying to wake Luke up.

Popo pushed Luke out the door, and took his hand and started running down the hall. Luke barely had time to get his satchel before the sudden departure. He noted the dark windows. It was clearly nighttime. Luke started analyzing the situation.

"I didn't know the windows were so shaded. They really don't provide any light," Luke said, suddenly jerking to the right, as Popo started slowing down. Popo fell into the floor, and Ness looked flabbergasted, as no one had ever seen through one of their pranks.

"Wh- Wh- Wha- H- How c-could you possibly know?" Ness was shocked, and his voice hid nothing.

"I was awake during your whole discussion. I just used convenient puzzles I had on the top of my mind to make sure I didn't react," Luke thought about what he had just said, and realized how different he was without the Professor's advice. He was a lot less gentlemanly, and that bothered him. He doubted the Professor would approve. He sighed, "Everything is so different now. I can't stop striving to be the gentleman that the Professor thought I was meant to be," he said louder than he meant to. He started moving to help Popo out of the hole.

"Well, that's certainly a start," Popo said, as he got out of the hole.

"You know what, let's just go back to bed."

"Good idea."

"Good night… again."

What the trio didn't notice, however, was that the puzzle that Popo didn't solve, the puzzle that was meant for Luke to solve in order for him to get out of the hole, disappeared into thin air.

"Whoa, did you guys feel that just now?" Luke asked the others when they had all woken up. Luke had also remembered to open the curtains before going back to sleep. When Luke woke up, he expected to feel something other than intrigued. Maybe euphoric, nervous. Heck, maybe even homesick. But definitely not intrigued. The young apprentice quickly put on his clothes after changing out of his pajamas. When he went over to the door to leave the room, he found it locked.

"Okay, very funny. Who locked the door? You're also locked inside, you know." Luke was now feeling frustrated, when the only response he received was the confusion dominating his room mates' faces.

"It must've been someone from the other side, 'cause we didn't do it. Well, I didn't, anyway." Popo's voice sounded both innocent and confused at the same time.

"Wait, is this a puzzle," Luke saw the object that he was so used to: A puzzle. It was shaped like a tablet, and had the smash symbol engraved on it. "Wait, is it connected to a padlock? So one of you three did do it." He was getting increasingly irate by the minute.

"Wait, I think I know who did it, Luke. If I'm right, and I probably am, then it's your fault," Ness shouted excitedly, though if you listened carefully, the boy's voice was tinted with fear.

"And how could that be true?"

"You see, there was a puzzle that was connected to the pitfall that was meant for you. Since you pulled Popo out of the hole instead of someone solving the puzzle, it was contaminated by your presence. Now, the mansion is probably filled with puzzles. I'm guessing you will be the most directly affected by the infestation, which is probably for the best, since you should be used to solving puzzles to do simple things by now," Ness said, taking a big breath when he finished. "Sadly, we are also going to be affected since the puzzles are all over the place. I'm guessing we aren't the only ones trapped in our rooms."

"Wait, but wasn't it you guys who set up the puzzle in the first place? Couldn't Popo have solved the puzzle? Couldn't you have, oh, I don't know, warned Luke that this would happen if the puzzle he didn't know about was too close to him and went unsolved?" Nana was very upset at her brother's lack of insight, and how Ness tried to pin the blame on Luke. "So now thanks to you two, who knows what's happened to the others. There is no way that Luke is going to be the most affected, not if the whole mansion is filled with puzzles."

Luke sighed, and got to work on the locked door. He soon realized that he would need help with solving it, though, as the puzzle sprang into action. Literally. A spring shot out of the tablet and shot Luke into Ness.

"That'll be a problem. There doesn't even seem to be any puzzle contained in the puzzle."

"What?" The other three yelled at the same time.

"I think we can hit the puzzle off the door. Popo and Nana, can you two smack the spring with your hammers so it goes back into the door?"

"Got it," the two said at the same time.

They got ready, and when they got close enough, the spring shot out again. The duo timed their swings perfectly, and the spring hit the door, causing the puzzle to shoot out through the window.

"We did it. Okay, the door's unlocked now. We need to help the others get out of their rooms, probably."

"I'll get this floor. Ness, you go get the second floor. Popo, you get the third floor. Luke, you get the fourth floor. Everyone know what they're doing?" Nana asked the others, knowing that no one in the group really knew.

"Hopefully?" All four of them said that at the same time. Luke got his satchel, his hat, and his good luck stamp, which was a gift from Professor Layton. Popo and Nana got into their parkas, (It was a chilly morning) picked their hammers back up off of the little stand they had, and looked at each other, knowing what was to come. Ness got his bat, his hat, and put away his book of rhymes.

"Let's do this," they all whispered, wanting to avoid waking up any still asleep smashers. They hoped they could achieve their goal without anyone knowing what had happened.

Nana soon found out that Ness's hypothesis was correct, with great dismay at that. She was at Mario, Luigi, Pit, and Dark Pit's room, and found the door enveloped in some sort of black fire. It didn't appear to be moving, like any normal fire. But it was still hot as any other fire. Nana saw the tablet, and heard shuffling on the other side of the door. The room was in the middle of the hall, and still very dark.

"Who did this? Was it Bowser? He knows there are better ways to get revenge," Mario yelled.

"What do you guys have in there?" Nana yelled, hearing more shuffling.

"Who is that?" Dark Pit shouted.

"It's Nana."

"What do you want? We really aren't taking visitors at the moment, in case if you didn't notice."

"Is there anything on the door?"

"A black fire that appears to be frozen." Pit said, his voice barely audible, made a whisper from fear.

"Is there a tablet on the door?"

"How'd you know?"

"There's one on this side as well. Okay, I'm going to try throwing some ice at the fire."

"That'll work so much better than highly pressurized water," Luigi noted, sarcasm filling his voice.

When Nana threw the ice clump, it bounced off. A few moments later, the fire flickered when the ice was in the light.

"Can you guys open your curtains for me?" Nana asked them, thinking of a possible solution.

"We did, but something is blocking out the light, and we can't open the windows to remove whatever it is," Mario shouted.

"How about turning on a lamp?" Nana asked them.

"Can't."

"What is the brightest light source you guys have in there?"

"Our fire balls," The two twins said at the same time.

"Hold them by the fire."

"Eh, why not," Mario said, having nothing to lose.

The fire started dimishing, and the five smashers started rejoicing. Soon, however, the sound of a roaring fire was heard, and then Luigi screamed. The fire noises didn't stop, and soon came out on Nana's side of the door. She threw her ice at the fire, and extinguished it. The tablet came off of the door, and the Mario bros and Pits came out of the room.

"What's going on, anyway," Pit asked.

"No time to explain, but there are puzzles locking all the doors. We need to get all the tablets off the doors, and fast. Luigi, go to the fourth floor and help Luke with that floor. Mario, go to the third floor and help Popo. Pit, you go the second floor, and Dark Pit, stay here with me."

They all complied, not entirely sure what was going on.

Ness went up to the second floor, and found a lot of weird things on the doors. One was covered with weird goo. There wasn't any tablet to be found. He decided to start with that door. He heard a bunch of loud bangs, and figured Snake was probably using his grenades. And C4. And rocket launcher. Ness stood by the door, and tried to absorb the explosive energy to build up enough power to knock the door off its hinges. He built up more than enough energy to do so with any regular door, but not this one. It just shuddered as the goo held it in place.

"Need some help with that?" Pit asked him, startling the boy, which caused his hat to hit the goo, and it held fast.

"What just happened? Who stole my explosions? I demand an explanation. Are we at war again?" Snake was losing his composure rather quickly, which wasn't any surprise to the others.

"I did. Is there a tablet on your side of the door?" Ness asked, hoping that there wasn't, since that would make for a simple solution.

"Yeah, Ness. How'd you know?" Peach asked the psychic boy.

"It's become a common problem," Ness said, avoiding a direct answer. He didn't need to let anyone know that this was partially his fault.

"Who exactly is in there?" Ness asked the four occupants of the presently locked room.

"Me, Peach, Snake, and Doctor Mario," Someone said; it sounded a lot like Sonic.

"Do you guys know what this goo is?"

"It appears to absorb any organic materials, while moving to the side to absorb said materials. Meanwhile, it simply is sticky to any inorganic materials," Dr. Mario said, "we haven't figured out a way to get through it, though, as it just moves back once the material is absorbed."

"I think we'll need Luke's help for this one," Ness grumbled to himself. He had never known that puzzles could be so strange. The puzzle he had set out was not even close to this difficult. It shouldn't have caused all this, either. Ness had planned ahead for his prank to turn sideways.

Popo didn't like puzzles. He didn't like being away from Nana. He didn't like it when they had a major dispute. He didn't like that he was the major cause of it. He especially didn't like the inner turmoil that he was suffering at the hands of his own prank.

He got to the first door, and found it already unlocked. He slowly opened the door, and found another door. Typical. There was screaming, and Popo guessed the people on the other side of the door had found out about their predicament.

"What is this tablet? It keeps on going to the other side of the door before we can smack it," someone screamed, their voice very gruff, but slightly groggy. Bowser had just woken up.

Popo waited for it to come to his side, and smacked it. It went in to the second door. On the side facing the hallway when it was closed. Popo quickly smacked that side, causing the tablet to jump to the other side of the door, and get smashed in between the two doors. The outer door disappeared, much to Popo's relief. He waited for the door to open, and open it did. Out came Bowser, Ganondorf, Link, and Zelda.

"What just happened?" Ganondorf growled at the young ice climber.

"I'm not going to explain it yet. Wait until everyone is out of their rooms. Ganondorf, go help Luke on the fourth floor. Bowser, stay here, and help me. Link, go down to the second floor and help Ness. Zelda, go to the bottom floor and help Nana. Okay, everyone?" Popo wasn't taking "no" for an answer. Bowser and Ganondorf still provided said non-answer, though. Ganondorf just didn't feel like the walk upstairs. Bowser just didn't feel like the walk through the hall. They soon agreed, however, when they realized the only chance of an explanation was if they complied.

Luke was already done with half the doors. He decided he didn't need the help from most of the other smashers. He soon came to Red and Olimar's room. He saw what looked to be a triforce on the door, with a tablet in the empty triangle. He thought of calling for Link, Zelda, and Ganondorf, but remembered three lanterns from Miracle Mask that were supposed to be a reference to the triforce. He quickly thought them up, and placed the lanterns in the respective spots. The door opened, and Charizard tackled Luke, having meant to attack the door.

"Oops," Charizard and Red said at the same time.

"I'm okay." Luke quickly said, getting up and brushing off some of the dust that had gotten on him. _On to the next door._

Nana and Popo had finished with their floors, and went down to help Ness, as he had been calling out for help. Pit had tried to tell the young boy to focus, but Ness couldn't, not after causing all of this trouble on the other smashers. He knew he would get kicked out, and Popo might also get expelled from the prestigious mansion. He could only take his rage out on the goo, though, as no one else deserved that kind of anger directed toward them. He had gotten all the other doors, too. _I swear I will explode from all the stress I'm feeling right now. Wait, explosions_

"Snake, do you still have any C4 left?" Ness had thought of a solution.

"Perhaps I do, perhaps I don't. Doesn't matter, it doesn't have any effect on the goo anyway. Why do you ask?" Snake thought the boy's questions pointless.

"And a cardboard box, I assume," Ness hoped they would get the point.

"Duh, I'm always ready to hide, I mean camouflage no matter the situation," Snake said, as if it should be obvious. Everyone else face palmed, or turned their heads quizzically.

"Yeah, okay. Anyway, can you arm the C4 to blow, put in the box, then put the box on the wall so the C4 will make contact with the tablet for me?"

"Eh, worth a shot, but it had better not steal my explosion again."

Snake complied, and the box pushed the goo away while getting absorbed. This allowed the C4 to make direct contact with the tablet, but it didn't explode. They were running out of time.

"Peach, throw your turnips so the goo doesn't get through the cardboard and back to the explosives," Ness directed, feeling confident in his plan.

The sound of turnips being uprooted from the floor was heard, and soon after, an explosion. The plan must've worked, as the door fell onto the floor, having been ripped off its hinges. The tablet lay flat on the ground, and Ness moved over to pick it up. He decided against it, and used his bat to flip it over, not wanting to cause any more trouble. The tablet was disintegrating, but Ness saw a fancy line, like the top of a letter written in very fancy calligraphy. It looked like a cane facing to the right. That was all Ness could see, as the tablet was turning to dust.

There was only one door left in the hall. It looked to be the hardest puzzle of all, though. And that was in spite of all of the abstract puzzles Luke had encountered. Luke steeled himself, and then noticed Charizard melting a wax seal on the door.

"Wait, that could be important," Luke cried. He noticed a curved line that ended with a broken circle, inside of a rectangle. The line looked like a sideways question mark, with the dot missing.

It was too late, though, and the seal was fully gone. It seemed as though the tablet was the wax, and the door opened, revealing a floating woman in a blue dress, a dog, a duck, and a black star shaped creature. The star was tightly clutching at the woman's dress, and the woman held a wand that had a 2D star at the end with the middle cut out. A few more of the star creatures came out as well: They made up the colors of the rainbow, and there was also the aforementioned black, and a white one.

There was a lot of clamor downstairs, and Luke assumed that everyone was finally let out. He looked out the window, lost in thought, and noticed something that didn't belong. Luke couldn't quite make out all the details from so high up, but it looked to him like two floating gloves. Master Hand and Crazy Hand. There was one big problem, though. There were two tablets floating by the two hands, and they were radiating some sort of dark aura from them. Luke opened the window, and remembering a trampoline from a puzzle, made it appear at the ground. He jumped. When the others looked outside, the majority screamed. Some fainted. The ones on the bottom residential floor looked and saw a trampoline. Then they saw a young boy on the trampoline. They also saw the two hands, and fruitlessly tried to open the windows.

 _Now, what do we have here? Two tablets, but no abstract puzzles._ Luke then saw the dark auras form into two warriors. The suits of armor from _Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright_ , to be specific. The young boy had no weapons but his mind, and he hoped it would be enough to fend off such powerful warriors.

Ness saw the warriors, and immediately rushed up to the fourth floor and out the window. He wouldn't let his friend get beaten by more of the puzzles. The boy used PK thunder to slow his descent, and saw that there was a grand total of four suits now. He also noticed the Ice Climbers, well, climbing down the mansion. They hopped off and joined their roommates. This would be a real test for all four of them.

"Okay, when these guys were part of a puzzle, they attacked using one of three different attack patterns. All that had to be done was use the same moves as they did to block. So, theoretically, that same principle should still be in play. However, there were originally only three in the puzzle, so one of them should be at least somewhat unpredictable," Luke called out to the group while everyone got into a battle stance. No support would be coming, though, as the only open window got shut tight by another of the tablets.

Popo and Nana started attacking the first suit in perfect tandem, each in perfect synch with the other, always swinging their hammers while the other recovered, or swinging at the same time. The suit was only barely able to defend against this, until a second one came over and forced the two twins to separate. Luke was using a puzzle involving getting to the bottom of a purse, and many random objects came flying out. They ranged from lip gloss to anvils, but they all obstructed his opponent's attacks. One of the anvils hit the suit's head, and it went flying off. The suit promptly collapsed, but reformed.

"Guys, they're robots. I just remembered that. Aim for the tablets instead," Luke yelled while creating a wall filled with gold to appear to block an attack. Luke then dashed over to one of the tablets and placed his trunk under, and dashed away. The trunk soon burst open, causing an explosion to take out the first tablet. Master Hand was freed.

"One down, one to go," Luke yelled, making a run for the second tablet.

A sword soon blocked his path, as it made an arc through the air so as to send Luke flying into the mansion. Luke didn't get up, having been stunned by the blow.

"I've got it," Ness shouted, swinging his bat to send another sword back at its owner. He ducked under a swing, sidestepped a stab, and used PK pulse to deflect a jump attack. He got to the tablet, and swung his bat as hard as he could. Luckily, he didn't strike out. (Ba-dum-tsk.) The tablet went soaring through the air and into a suit. All four of the suits and the two tablets promptly disappeared in a cloud of dust.

"We did it. We actually did it, guys," Popo yelled ecstatically. The other three shared his euphoria at the battle they had won, and the doors they'd unlocked.

"You four have some explaining to do, though, unless if I'm wrong about the source of these tablets. You are in big trouble," Master Hand said, bringing down the group's mood. "I expect a full explanation, and it had better be good."

A figure stood in the shadows of the trees, watching the whole scene. Luke had done well, as to be expected. After all, he was the Professor's apprentice, and quite the protégé at that. The figure mulled over the long, drawn out, very complicated plan. Luke was bound to search for Hershel Layton. The person knew that. But what he would find would be quite the change from what was to be expected. That, was something Luke would never accept. That the great Professor Layton had changed from the fatherly figure Luke knew him to be. That the great archaeologist had changed from the amazingly clever and kind man he was known as. Yes, Professor Layton was a new man, and it was only a matter of time. _Soon, Mister Triton, you will have to stop holding on to the past. Soon, you and Hershel Layton will both be in my grasp._ The person then left a little present for Luke to find, and walked away into the depths of the woods. _Yes, you may have escaped once, but every bird follows the trail of crumbs._ After a few minutes, the only evidence that the mysterious person had ever been there was stamp that showed a smash ball inside Luke's hat. It oozed power from its handle. It wasn't just a stamp, but a weapon.

Author's Notes:

Who is that mysterious figure? Could this person have captured Professor Layton? What kind of weapon could a stamp be? All will be revealed, in time. What do guys think of the puzzles I'm using as attacks? I'm mostly using the mini games for Luke's attacks.

For Aurora, I didn't realize I actually went through with that little change. I'm sorry for that and any confusion it may have caused. Please disregard this little note if you have no idea what I'm talking about.

Please review. I'd also like possible attacks for Luke. Luke won't only have as many attacks as possible for the actual game. He'll have more. I know the flow of the story is kind of awkward, but it should (hopefully) get better as I continue writing this story.


	3. Ch 3: Setting the Stage

Author's Notes:

Yay, first review. To Aurora, I'm glad you think that this was a great idea. I prefer writing original plots, so that's what you should expect. I laughed when I read your review. (Smooth transition right there) Not because it was bad or anything, but I think that it's become a stereotype that Professor Layton villains wear masks. (Which they do) But I didn't say that this mysterious person was wearing a mask. So, what gave you that idea. Also, I've never actually played _The Last Specter_ , so I'm afraid someone will have to explain what this Specter is, and how it works, etc. etc. Don't worry about spoilers, since I read the plot somewhere along the line. (I don't remember much of it, but still, don't worry about it.) Also, I found your review to be the perfect length. It gave me a lot of meaningful insight to how I wrote the story, (And helped me find a typo when I went back to read the last part of the chapter over) gave me a new idea for an attack, and told me your thoughts on the story. This is probably overdoing the response to it, quite honestly. But do keep in mind, though, in this story, the battleground isn't limited to a stage. Nor is the battleground 2D, as that wouldn't make sense in a fanfic that doesn't have the same limits as programming and tradition. Also, I'm already using the Squirrel's nuts for an attack. (That came out so wrong) I believe Luke rolled a nut during the battle against Ivysaur.

Anyway, this chapter will be taking a look at the repercussions of the gang's actions. (That is the term I will use to refer to the Ice Climbers, Luke, and Ness)

There will be spoilers for Xenoblade Chronicles, FYI, in this chapter.

BEGIN

A Puzzle Unsolved 3: Setting the Stage Pt. 1

"You four are in **big** trouble," Master Hand said, pointing his finger at the four of them. It really did have quite the dramatic effect. Nana really felt nervous despite her innocence in the matter.

"But, sir, it's not even Luke's fault," Ness said.

"But, sir, Nana wasn't even involved," Popo said; he and Ness had both spoken at the exact same time. It was weird how they both defended the other two at the same time, without mentioning the other.

"You four do realize how serious an offense this is, right? You four do realize just what repercussions there could be for making this happen, right?" Master Hand asked, ignoring Ness and Popo. He could be quite rude like that.

"But, sir. But, sir," Crazy Hand mumbled in a mocking tone. He was idly floating on the side, flicking at some weeds.

Luke noticed Crazy's mockery, and how both the Hands tensed at the same time. He tried to figure out why.

"Is something the matter, sirs?" Luke asked intuitively.

"Given the past hour, what do you think?" Master Hand asked, his voice cloaked in frustration, and condescension. But when Luke analyzed it a bit further, he found the voice tinted with fear.

"I'm not talking about that," Luke said, causing both the Hands to flinch subtly enough that very few could tell. The Duck Hunt dog was one of the few who could. He started walking over there, causing his avian friend to follow.

Luke saw something of interest, and while no one was looking, went over and pocketed it. It was a stamp. He felt it ooze power, and it felt uncomfortable in his hand. _Hm, this looks very familiar. Eh, I'll take a closer look later._

"The only matter here is your reckless actions. You two are lucky to still be here. We don't know how far out these puzzles might have spread. You four are the lucky ones who get to search every single one of the battle grounds to make sure they're all safe. We've already checked the forest, and there wasn't anything there," Master Hand said, "now go. A few other smashers have 'volunteered' to help you." At that statement, he flicked his wrist (?) and the four smashers were teleported off to different stages.

When Luke saw he was above the cloud line, he freaked out. When he landed on a solid platform, he freaked out again. When he saw Charizard, he realized he was fine. That was a pure coincidence.

"Where are we?" Luke asked, shock being replaced by bewilderment. He looked down and saw a wooden floor. When he looked at his other surroundings, he saw they were on an airship. They were at the front. When Luke looked at the front of the ship, he saw a rounded gray bump. When he looked at the back, he saw giant fins that looked more like wings.

"The Halberd," Charizard said, before a giant claw shot out and grabbed it.

"Crikey, I did not see that coming," Luke said, falling down from shock. He also didn't see the barrel roll coming. The young apprentice was flung from the ship, but was still able to conjure the ropes Patricia used and jumped into the loading deck.

"Ow, ow, ow," Luke said to himself. The whole experience gave him a sense of déjà vu. _How many times have the Professor and I infiltrated a giant weapon before?_ Luke wondered, grimacing upon thinking of the Professor. _I need to go help Charizard._ Luke started running for what appeared to be an elevator, but was almost immediately stopped by a giant wheel with an eye in its middle, a giant rock with tiny feet and a flat base, and a giant UFO.

"Oh, come on," Luke said louder than he intended.

"Need some help?" a duck asked the boy.

For some stupid reason, Master Hand had decided to split Nana and Popo up. He knew that the duo hated that; even worse, if there were powerful hostiles, the two would be ill suited to defeat them. _Stop complaining, you stupid buffoon,_ Popo told himself. He was now in some strange city with a rip-off of the Eiffel Tower in the center of the city. Popo really hoped there weren't any dangerous beings around created by the puzzles, because there were far too many civilians. Popo noticed a Pokémon, and figured that would make things safer. He heard a loud boom, and saw a large wave of what looked like electrical energy burst from the giant tower. It expanded until the tower, now revealed to be Prism Tower, (According to a nearby TV) was surrounded by a sphere of electricity. The sphere didn't stop, however, and was engulfing the entire city. Popo stood frozen to the spot, (Buh-dum-tsk) and didn't move until someone tackled him.

"I'm guessing you'll be wanting a bit of help with this one, huh," Red said sarcastically. "Go, Graveler."

As the jagged Pokémon popped out of its pokeball, Popo wondered how helpful it could possibly be against the expanding ball of electricity. It was taking out everything it touched: it shorted out all the electrical appliances it touched, made all the people Pokémon that weren't immune to electricity faint, and was all around a major disaster.

"Use mud sport, but keep it concentrated. I'm afraid we can't save anyone else with your moves from that energy," Red said, (Hey, I just realized it rhymed) making Popo cringe at the results of his own carelessness. He cringed further at the tingling he felt as the electricity hit his parka, but luckily, it only tingled. The energy passed harmlessly over the two, and they started looking at each other uncertainly.

"How is that even possible?" Red asked, astonished at the sudden immunity to electricity Popo had.

"I don't know. This parka is made for warmth, so it's made out of fur, not rubber," Popo said. (Yes, some animals were harmed in its production)

Popo tried to pull his hammer out of the ground. _Wait, it's in the ground. So it acted as a lightningrod, then,_ Popo thought to himself.

"Wait, my hammer dug into this little patch of dirt," Popo said, glad to have an explanation.

"Yeah, well, we don't have any time to waste. We need to get to the top of Prism Tower and stop whatever's causing that electrical monstrosity," Red said, already starting to run towards said tower.

"Wait for me," Popo yelled, starting to chase after Red. But when he looked to the side, he saw another Prism Tower.

"Uh, Red, we have a problem, and I don't mean the ball of energy that's wiping out the city," Popo screamed, pointing to the second Prism Tower. Lumiose City had become a giant maze. (Not a labyrinth, those only have a single path)

Red heard a loud roar, and saw a huge Zoroark slowly walking towards them.

"Make that two problems," Red said. The duo gulped.

Nana was pretty fricking mad at Master Hand right now. She had been sent into a volcano, while still wearing her parka. And she couldn't take it off, either, since she had decided today was the **one** day when it was too hot to wear a t-shirt underneath her parka. (And you simply can't wear a parka underneath a t-shirt; that is the biggest fashion faux anyone can possibly make.) So she was sweating faster than her ice clumps could even melt. (And they're stored in her parka)

"Gahhhhhhhh," Nana screamed. (But not as well as I can do it) She immediately regretted doing that, though, as a stalagmite nearly fell on top of her. Nana rolled out of the way, and saw that the lava in the volcano was slowly rising up. _If that reaches the top, it'll probably be an explosion big enough to wipe out this planet._ Not to worry, though, since this planet was just one that I've probably never heard of, so I won't name any cute alien species that reside on this planet. (I'll just assume that the residents are moderately cute and at least somewhat worth saving.)

Anyway, Nana could tell that there was a giant vacuum making the pressure in the volcano nearly unbearable.

"This, will be a problem," Samus said, suddenly appearing behind Nana.

"Oh my god, where'd you come from?" Nana asked, nearly falling off the ledge from shock.

"Right behind you. Master Hand just teleported me in here since I would know how to deal with this."

"So, he was lying when he said we needed to check all the stages?"

"Irrelevant. If we don't stop this eruption, the residents here will burn to death in the lava. The air vacuum at the top is creating far too much pressure, and when this volcano blows, it will be in many more directions than up.

"Wh-what if it went so far up it never came back down? A-Are there any nearby planets?" Nana asked, not really knowing how that kind of thing worked.

"If there were, it would be smashed against this one. So, no. You know, that could actually work. We just need to create the perfect amount of pressure so that the lava only goes up, but the volcano doesn't explode before it happens. I think I know how to do it, too." Samus said, causing both the girls to get excited.

"Okay, here's what we'll do."

Ness was feeling pretty upset about this whole thing. He had been the one to plan out the whole prank, and he had been the one to convince Popo that it was a great idea. Just to scope out the new competition, he had said. Well, the new competition was growing on him quicker than most others had. _Stay focused,_ the psychic boy had to repeatedly tell himself.

He found himself in a valley that was rather expansive, and had quite a few strange creatures. He nearly had a heart attack when he saw an enormous figure looming ominously in the distance. The figure was holding a sword, which seemed to just ominously float far above.

"Where am I?" Ness said out loud.

"Gaur Plains, on the Bionis's Leg. Welcome to the Bionis," A young man said. The man revealed himself to be Shulk.

"I've already scouted out the area, and nothing abnormal seems to be going on," Shulk said. It was at that moment when a bunch of machines started flying in from the sky. One of them was huge, and towered over the rest.

"Well, well, well. Look at what we have over here. A young chump and a stupid boy. Not sure which is which, though," The huge machine said, its voice throaty and condescending.

"Not you again," Shulk moaned. "Do you happen to have experience fighting the mechon? No? Oh, this should be fun."

"Don't have your friends to save you this time, do you?" The machine said, bursting into triumphant laughter.

"I do have the Monado, and Ness, this time around."

"Yeah, I'm here," Ness said, not wanting to be forgotten.

"And this time around, a little extra something was added to my body. You won't be cracking this so easily now."

Luke saw a glimmer, and upon closer inspection, saw a well-hidden tablet.

"Shulk, there's a tablet that it's hiding."

"Then let's relieve it of that burden."

Shulk charged, and slashed his powerful sword at the mechon. It bounced off with a resonant clang and Shulk looked bewildered for a moment, before jumping away to dodge a strike.

"Aw, phooey." Shulk said.

The other mechon started closing in. One of them fired a ball of energy, which Ness batted back with his, well, his bat. The mechon was hit, but didn't fall. Another one closed in from behind, and thrusted a drill at Ness. It would've hit, but Shulk saw it coming and sliced that mechon in half, only missing Ness by a hair. That hair also got sliced in half. A few more started closing in, but Ness had already prepared a PK pulse. The attack went directly into another mechon, and exploded, blowing it to pieces.

"Wh-That's impossible. Only the Monado can damage mechon," The huge mechon said, shocked to the core.

"Clearly," Ness said sarcastically, using PK thunder to launch himself through three more mechon.

"Actually, this is entirely unprecedented. At least this time I don't have to waste time using Monado Enchant," Shulk said, preparing to use back slash on a mechon that was sneaking up on Ness.

The giant mechon stopped Shulk's attack midair, however, and Shulk was barely able to block it.

"Wh-Why didn't I see that coming?" Shulk wondered out loud. This battle was starting to take a turn for the worst.

Luke wasn't very experienced at fighting, and he hoped his luck wouldn't run out. Luke sized up his opponents, and noticed that a duck had arrived.

"Hey, wait for me, Duke," A dog barked, running over to where the duck was, (I'm so creative when it comes to naming, right?) and the duck then hopped onto its shoulder.

"Oh, who're the giant objects? Oh, hey Luke," The dog barked, seemingly in one breath.

"Look out," Luke yelled, before causing the Diabolical Box to appear and blowing on it. The breath got a lot stronger, and blasted the giant rock away. _What is it with Kirby and fighting inanimate objects?_ He almost got crushed by the giant wheely, but snapped out of his thoughts and used his hat to make the blocks fall underneath him, launching himself up while smashing the wheely. It plowed through the blocks, however, and turned around on a dime, barely losing any momentum. This gave Luke an idea.

"If we can cause the wheely to lose its ability to brake, we could make it drive off the edge," Luke barked at the Duck Hunt duo.

"And how are supposed to that? It's not like wheelies have pedals, you know," The dog barked back.

Luke started moving over to the opening in the bay he had come from. The wheely followed, while the UFO and rocky started teaming up to assault the duo. Duke started lashing out with its beak in an attempt to stop the charging rocky, which caused it to spin out. It wasn't fazed, however, and still hit the dog.

"You okay, Max?" Duke asked the dog.

"Yeah," Max yipped, grinning mischievously. The dog kicked a can that appeared from nowhere, which hit the UFO and exploded, knocking the UFO away.

"Here goes nothing. Let's see if I have a future in bull wrangling," Luke said. The wheely charged, and Luke dodged out of the way, revealing a banana peel, which the wheely rolled on. It took the wheely off the Halberd, and down to whatever was lying below. (This is supposed to act like the banana peels from the puzzles in Unwound Future. You know, the ones that made you go across the all the floor between you and any walls you might be facing. Now imagine that, but not as extreme. Not Diddy Kong's banana peels. Those are different.)

"One down, two to go," Luke yelled. He saw a tablet suddenly appear, and seal the hangar door. They wouldn't be knocking either of their other opponents away. While Max and Duke were keeping the Dubior and Rocky busy, Luke started taking a closer look around the area for anything that could be helpful in taking the enemies down. He noticed a few different strange looking capsules, and started running over to them. The Dubior noticed this, however, and moved over to intercept the young boy.

Luke ducked under a beam of energy the Dubior had sent his way, and rolled away from the UFO's charging body to dodge the ball of plasma it had encased itself in. He got out a mirror, and sent another of its beams back at it. (You know, those mirrors you use to get rid of the ghosts in one of the daily puzzles. I believe it's in Azran Legacy) The beam struck the Dubior, but didn't much of an effect. Luke finally got over to the capsules, and saw three different things. All three were red on the bottom half, but had different colors on the top, with different icons. One of them was purple with an icon resembling a puddle of goo that was bubbling. The second one was blue with an icon resembling a tear. The third was gray with a top hat in it. _Well, top hats have always been a welcome sight for me,_ Luke thought. When he touched the capsule, nothing seemed to change for Luke. The stamp in his pocket, which he had forgotten about, seemed to react, however. It got heavier in his pocket, so Luke decided to set it down somewhere. When he grabbed it, a thin cylinder extended from the stamp. He looked at in wonder, before being snapped out of his stupor by a beam passing directly in front of his face.

Luke waved the stamp, thinking about how it looked like a magician's wand, and all their staple tricks, when it suddenly shot out a pillar of fire at the Dubior. The attack hit home, and did quite a bit of damage, too, as the Dubior was forced to land.

The Duck Hunt duo wasn't doing as well against their rocky foe. It continuously avoided taking any damage whatsoever from all of their attacks, and they could only land their fastest, and weakest, attacks on the overgrown rock. It leapt up far higher than it should've been able to, and tried to smash Max, who barely rolled out of the way. Max was hit by some rocks that shot out the ground from the impact, however, and whimpered at the impact. The dog was getting frustrated at the difficulties it was facing. Kirby could also turn into a rock, but he could only take so much before he snapped back to normal. At least, he did with the magic of the arenas. But this wasn't even close to the arena. _That's it, we get it to the arena, and it won't be able to stay invincible indefinitely._

Luke still struggled with his own battle, but was able to hold his own with the new weapon. He realized that fire had appeared because of that puzzle involving the elemental card jon-can-poe. (From the Miracle Mask) Luke realized that whenever it was stunned, and still in the air, it moved to the back of the ship, slowly. Or rather, the ship was moving forward without Dubior. _If I can increase the ship's speed, then this UFO will get left behind._

"Hey, Duke, Max, can you guys keep these two occupied for a few more minutes? I have a plan to potentially get rid of both of these, umm, ah, unwanted passengers," Luke said, trying to phrase it subtly enough that the two bosses wouldn't catch on.

"We also have a plan to get rid of Mr. Rocky here. We're going to battle stage up top," Max said.

"That's where I need Dubior as well. I'm going to the control room," Luke hollered.

Luke started running in what he hoped was the right direction: He only had a few seconds outside to look at the airship, and he was pretty sure that he was going in the right direction.

"We need to split up in order to get both of these guys to the roof, Max," Duke said, starting to fly off to one corridor. Max ran to the other. The Dubior chased after Duke, and the Rocky chased Max. Luke ran down another corridor, and felt confident that he would find the control room.

"Guys, you need to help Charizard, unless if he's already escaped," Luke yelled, before all three disappeared down their own respective paths.

What no one noticed, however, was a tailpipe starting to breach through the barrier formed by the tablet. The giant Wheely wasn't done yet. It finally got through the barrier. It was very mad at Luke, for having humiliated it in front of the other bosses. It revved its engines, and roared down the same path that Luke had taken. It knew the Halberd better than Luke, and it was going to take a shortcut. Luke wouldn't stand a chance.

"Well, that's a new one," Popo yelled while running away from the giant Zoroark. "So, Red, is this something we should actually be fighting, 'cause I'm pretty sure we could take it down."

"Yeah, and it could take down half the city. I'm getting the feeling that the new layout of the city is Zoroark's doing, so if we can manage to get through this maze and to Prism Tower, we should be in the clear. We only need to shut down the electricity in the city," Red shouted, sounding strangely calm for a guy running from a Zoroark that could crush him like a Joltik. By Red's estimation, it was about as big as a Wailord is long. (And that is very long.)

"What do you mean shut down the electricity? Didn't that ball of energy already do that?" Popo asked, still yelling.

"Technically, if that was a ball, you would also be unconscious, as we would still be touching the energy. It's a wave. It's going to swallow Kalos pretty soon. This electricity is probably what's powering up the Zoroark this much. If we shut it down, we'll get back to reality, where a Zoroark can't possibly create an illusion this strong," Red explained, grabbing a pokeball. "Here goes. Go, Squirtle!"

"Why, just why?"

"Maybe I can catch it. That should end the illusion."

The pokeball didn't work, though. Graveler was currently the only Pokémon that Red had available, apparently.

"I guess you'll have to do, Graveler. We got this," Red said, trying to convince himself more than anyone else.

"Uh, Red, do Zoroark usually travel in packs?"

"I highly doubt they would travel in packs. They might live together, though."

"Well, at least this one isn't giant."

"Wait, what?"

"You deal with the giant, I'll deal with the regular one," Popo said, really not wanting to fight the giant Zoroark.

Popo charged at the smaller Zoroark, which disappeared from sight. It reappeared on top of a lamp post.

"Why, you little…" Popo grunted. The Zoroark clicked its tongue in disapproval, the noise sounding much closer than it should've been.

"Oh, mother of Everest."

The Zoroark appeared behind Popo, and lashed out with its claws. Popo barely blocked the attack, but was able to swing his hammer in response. The Zoroark disappeared again, this time not appearing anywhere. Popo looked around in confusion. He felt a sudden chill, and swung in the opposite direction, feeling a solid impact at the end of his hammer.

Red knew Graveler wasn't experienced enough to stand much of a chance. So Red did what he does best: Wish he knew how to fight. The giant Zoroark sneered at him, as if it knew what he was thinking. Red realized what it was doing.

"Graveler, use rock smash behind you." The Pokémon complied, and managed to land a solid blow on the dark type. The giant flickered for a moment, before reforming with its foot over Red. He realized what was happening, and held back a laugh. Its illusions were making it predictable. He wasn't even standing, he realized. "Graveler, use rock throw, and aim it at me," Red instructed, knowing it sounded crazy. Then again, so was this whole thing. The Pokémon did as told, landed another solid blow against its opponent. The Zoroark appeared for a moment; this told Red that it wasn't really that strong. He got out an ultra-ball, and held it ready for when he would get his next chance.

"You're doing great, Graveler," Red told the rock type. It grunted in self-satisfaction at the statement. Now, Graveler, finish this with magnitude… Now," Red yelled. The Zoroark then revealed its giant self again, and picked up the Graveler. Its grip was firm enough to stop the attack. _So, that was all just a show, huh? Very good, very good,_ Red thought. This really was a worthy opponent.

"You think you are in control of this battle? You think you can come out on top? All it takes is a little illusion, and suddenly… I'm in control of your precious little Graveler," A voice said, seemingly coming from Red's subconscious. "All it takes one little squeeze, and your Graveler will be sediment across the concrete floor."

"No, she won't. Not this time. Not again. I might've failed a Pokémon I promised I would take care of once, but never again."

Red knew he would have to get into the fight himself in order to save his Graveleret. (A nickname I had for one of my Graveler. I pass it unto thee, Red.) Luckily, Red had one skill that was critical to any wild battle: He had a tremendously good throwing arm. Red took out a pokepuff from a container. He had made these pokepuffs for situations that called for such measures. The pokepuff was sprinkled with a ground up revival herb. It was a pale pink, with pink frosting, and looked rather strange with the green sprinkled across its surface. Red had gotten rather skilled at baking pokepuffs during his stay at the Smash Mansion, and knew just the right ratio of frosting to herb to make it taste wonderful, despite the infamous bond-breaking bitterness of the revival herb.

"Graveler, use explosion," Red yelled, hoping that the Graveler could still hear him through the heavy illusion. Red almost faltered for a moment when he saw a tablet on the Zoroark's back. He didn't, though. He was also rather skilled with timing, and did so perfectly with his throw. The Graveler caught the pokepuff in its mouth right before it exploded, and the revival herb took effect right before its recipient could faint. By this manner, it avoided taking damage.

"Not bad, not bad. Pretty good, in fact. But you'll have to do better," The Zoroark growled. It was getting mad, which gave Red the perfect opportunity.

"Use rock smash on its foot."

The Graveler complied, which caused the Zoroark to stoop down to start wildly slash at it.

"That's it: Now, all three of you are going to die."

Shulk knew they were in trouble when he couldn't see the future if it involved an attack from the giant mechon.

"How do we defeat the giant, Shulk?" Ness asked him: they had both taken out the last of the small mechon.

"I don't think the Monado's power can defeat it this time," Shulk said, realizing just how dismal their situation really was.

"You're right it can't. I was the only one powerful enough to get brought back to life. Now, you get to deal with- oh," The giant mechon said, realizing its mistake.

"Well, thanks for that encouraging tidbit. I guess we do stand a chance. Ness, we need to aim for that tablet, and take it out. That should either end this fight, or make it a whole lot easier for us," Shulk said, feeling new vigor.

Shulk charged at the mechon, ducking below a slash, and thrust his blade at the tablet. The attack was blocked by the mechon's body, though, as the Monado bounced off of it. Ness was making his way behind the mechon, in the meantime, and while it was distracted, swung his bat pretty hard. It hit, and the mechon stumbled.

"You think that's enough? No, only the Monado will be taking me down. And Shulky-poo here isn't strong enough to do that," The mechon said, clearly mocking Shulk.

"He's right. We don't stand a chance if I can't see the future…" Shulk said, admitting defeat.

"Wait, but if this is an arena, then wouldn't you technically have to make yourself have a vision? Isn't that how it works in the tournament?" Ness asked, thinking he had hit upon the silver bullet they needed.

"You're right… Okay, I got this," Shulk said, feeling re-renewed vigor. Perhaps they would win this after all.

Nana and Samus got started on the plan. They would have to climb to the top of the volcano, and then Nana would have to use her final smash. Luckily for her, Samus knew how to make a smash ball. (Which she only did outside of battle, of course.)The duo started climbing, with Nana being much slower, (She's an **ice** climber, not a volcano interior climber) which simply bothered her. It didn't matter that Samus was using her rocket boots; she wasn't as experienced in climbing as Nana. Nana threw a tether at a hanging stalagmite, and after making sure it would hold her weight, swung Tarzan style all the way to the top. Samus arrived a few seconds later, and looked shocked at Nana's actions.

"You do realize we're in an active volcano, right? If that had fallen, your parka wouldn't have been the least of your problems," Samus said, reprimanding the young girl.

"Listen, do you hear that? You need to hurry and make that smash ball so we can get out of here already," Nana said, suddenly feeling rather chilly. Not from the temperature, (How could someone in a parka get cold in an active volcano?) but from something making her feel creeped out. Nana soon knew what the source of her bad feeling was, as Ridley swooped down into the volcano.

"It should only take me about five minutes. Oh, wait, I already made one, so, never mind… OH MY GOD IS THAT RIDLEY?" Samus shrieked. She knew that she could take him down with Nana's help, but the monster still scared her down to the core.

"We need to take Ridley down, first. Otherwise, it could mess everything up," Samus warned.

"Why can't I just use my final smash and take it down with that?" Nana asked. That would be the simplest and easiest solution. So, given pretty much every protagonist's luck ever, it wouldn't work.

"It might not be enough to take Ridley down. Unless if you can accurately predict the total beating Ridley can take, wait until it's down to use your final smash."

"Gotcha."

At that moment, Ridley charged at the duo, and they both moved to the edge of their little platform.

"This is the worst déjà vu ever," Samus groaned while shooting a heavy missile from her arm cannon. It hit Ridley, but only served to anger the beast.

Ridley screamed, and smashed its way through the platform that Nana and Samus were on, but not before Nana could give it a solid whack with her hammer. That had caused it to slightly dip as it destroyed their platform, and then crash into a stalagmite. Meanwhile, Nana had been preparing another rope, and was able to get out of the volcano. Samus also climbed out via the rope, although Nana felt like she cheated since she still used her rocket boots to assist her.

Ridley wasn't done, however, and came hurtling out of the volcano. The monster proceeded to charge at Nana, attempting to hit the climber off of the volcano. It missed, however, and came back around again, this time trying to hit Nana into the volcano. As it neared Nana, she rolled to the side, and jumped as high as she could. She landed on Ridley, and decided that it couldn't be that different from scaling a mountain. (Minus the fact that mountains don't gain altitude or produce blood-curdling screams.) Nana was very wrong on the matter, though, which she found out as Ridley dive bombed the volcano.

"Ready the smash ball," Nana screamed, trying not to let her fear show in her voice. Samus replied, but Nana couldn't hear what she said. A smash ball appeared in front of Nana, and the climber only barely managed to smash it. Just before Ridley hit the lava, Nana used her final smash while jumping off of the pterodactyl-like monster. Ridley went into the lava, and the mountain of ice formed by Nana's final smash pushed it farther down, while also creating tremendous pressure in the lava, which by then was very close to the top. Nana dove off of her ice right before it, and the lava, went flying out into space. Ridley was sent soaring as well. Nana and Samus had succeeded in their task: the planet was now safe.

Nana saw Samus disappear, and blinked in surprise. When she opened her eyes, she saw she was at the top of a lighthouse. She looked out at the ocean, and nearly threw up. There was no ocean… only sky.

As Luke was running down the hallway, he stopped to check a map that he saw, and found that he was in fact, going in the right direction. As he passed by the engine room, he heard the loud humming of the Halberd's engines roaring in his ears. He soon passed by a strange drawing on the wall, on the door to the engine room. It showed a large sword, and an even larger warrior carrying it. The warrior was in the heat of battle, against what appeared to be a turtle, fox, star, and martial artist. It appeared to be a darknut. (Reference to a future chapter I have in mind for a different fanfic, done) The stamp was starting get heavier in his pocket, again. The wand had gone back into the stamp a bit earlier. Luke took the stamp out of his pocket, and touched it against the darknut.

The change was instantaneous: Luke was soon a hulking figure in black armore that he could only wear through the enormous strength he had gained. He also had an enormous, jagged sword, and a not so enormous rapier hanging at his side. (Basically, the darknuts from Twilight Princess) Luke fumbled with the door knob, eventually turning it.

As soon as the door opened, a wheely came charging at Luke…

(Meanwhile)

Duke soon found it to be a very **bad** idea to separate from Max. Every time that happened, Duke ended up being chased by something. (Usually not a friendly game of tag, either.) This time, it was a UFO that shot plasma beams. Duke ducked under one of the Dubior's beams, rose above another one, swerved to the left of yet another one, and hurtled down a corner. If he could find an elevator, then he could send it down, and fly up the shaft to the top. Sadly, the Dubior wasn't willing to wait for an elevator. As Duke continued soaring down the Halberd's many halls, he found that the Dubior was able to stop on a dime, and even worse, turn on one too. But, an elevator was approaching, having opened the doors already, but then it suddenly started going down again. The doors were just about closed, the elevator about to go down. The Dubior apparently also didn't approve, as it shot a beam, missing Duke despite the duck just flying in place, and hitting the control panel, forcing the doors open. Duke took the opportunity and soared up through the shaft, knowing already that the elevator had gone down. The Dubior followed… All the way to the top.

Max found that his rocky pursuer was a whole lot nimbler than it would first seem. Luckily, Max had somehow managed to memorize a map of the whole Halberd during the battle. So when he arrived at the elevator, he was ecstatic. He wasn't so ecstatic when the elevator came down, blocked off by a tablet. The stairs would have to do. Luckily, they weren't far away. Not so luckily, however, was the fact that they were too narrow for the giant rocky to fit through. Max knew the only other route was outside. **Luckily** , that might take care of the rocky before it even got to the stage. Max was running as fast as his little doggy legs could take him, (Which was pretty fast) somehow barely outrunning the rocky. It didn't help that it kept on jumping ahead of him, slamming down into the floor, forcing him to suddenly swerve away. Up until that point, however, it had done so at the corners only. So Max was forced to ram the wall, nearly losing his balance entirely. The rocky used this as an opportunity to attack. Luckily, a pixelated gunman appeared, shooting the rocky. It lost its balance, having been hit by an attack. But, since the halls were so narrow, it still brushed against Max, causing the dog to yelp in pain. The gunman disappeared, leaving Max alone with his jagged opponent once again.

Max could see a door that lead to a series of platforms attached to the outside of the Halberd. Why Meta Knight would ever have platforms built on the outside of his giant airship that would allow for it to be stealthily invaded so easily, Max did not know. But he did get a feeling this battle would do away with that issue for Meta.

Popo was finding this Zoroark to be **extremely** irritating. Even more irritating than wearing a summer parka in the winter. (You wouldn't understand how exposed it makes Popo feel) He had managed to land some solid blows, though, and that was all that currently mattered.

"Red, I'm making a run for Prism Tower. If this Zoroark won't show itself, I'll just ignore it," Popo yelled, starting to make a dash for the tallest of the towers. After, all, the object of critical importance was always held at the top of the tallest tower, right?

Then, the Zoroark showed itself, along with the dozens of different traps it apparently set during their heated battle. It was grinning maniacally.

"You think I don't realize this is all just another illusion? I'll bet I'll be at the tower before a squirt gun can get fired at me," Popo said, before dropping his hammer into a bear trap, which actually activated. "Wait, there are real traps here!?" _I guess I'll have to figure out which ones are real and which ones are fake._

He opened the trap, grabbed his hammer, and got a much better idea. "You think I don't have enough rope to get out of this? Guess what… I actually do." (He had mostly just forgotten to put it away.) Popo threw a grappling hook at the top of the nearest building, and actually managed to get it to attach. The Zoroark was fine with just watching from the side… for the moment. Popo noticed a foot over his head just in time to roll out the way. He used that to give himself a running start, jumping as far as he could in order to start scaling the building. It was pretty close to the tower, too. He landed in the middle of a ring of grates.

"Those, oh, those should be fun. Yes, those will definitely be fun," The Zoroark said.

"Wait, you can talk?" Popo asked, bewildered. He knew extremely powerful psychic types could talk, and Pokémon that went to extreme lengths to learn the language could do so as well. (Eh hem, Meowth's crushed heart. There was a whole episode on it. Beware, for those who haven't seen it and get really emotional, it can be a real tearjerker.) But he doubted this Zoroark did anything like that.

"I can, weave the illusion of it, yes. Although you seem rather reluctant to fight. I guess the scale must be raised a bit," The Zoroark said, suddenly lashing out with its claws. Popo moved his hammer to block it, but when he did block, he saw he was blocking another hammer.

"Hey, uh, Red, if you wanted to switch opponents, that'd be fine by me," A doppelganger of Popo said. Popo raised his hammer to hit his illusory clone, but he saw claws instead. He had been put under the illusion of being a Zoroark.

"Yeah, I'm up for that," Red said, panting as he threw another reviving pokepuff, followed by another explosion.

"No, it's a trick," Popo tried to say, but all that came out was, "Zor-Zoroark."

The fake Popo threw his hammer at the giant Zoroark, who must've been aware of the trick, and let it hit him, and acted like it was a stunning blow.

"Seriously, dude, you couldn't take down a little Zoroark but you can do that?" Red asked, flabbergasted, "Whatever. Graveler, use roll out."

Popo, now a Zoroark without the abilities of one, tried to dodge it. He failed miserably.

"Now, use rock smash," Red ordered. Popo felt the crushing blow land much harder than it should've. He would have to do something Red knew a Zoroark couldn't do, or take down his doppelganger. He noted how there weren't any illusions of a fight going on between the actual two Zoroark, so he decided to go to Prism Tower anyway. Luckily, the fake Popo could only go as fast as the real Popo, so there wasn't any chance of catching up. Red was also running in that direction, but was behind Popo. As Popo arrived, he knew that it was the real deal, and started dashing up the stairs, having already gone into full on climbing mode. Red didn't stand a chance of getting up there first, and he suddenly realized why.

"I guess I'll stand guard, then," Red said, chuckling at how Popo was the one who had broken the illusion. "Graveler, use defense curl, and keep on doing so until the Zoroark arrive: we're going to need to be prepared for their speed and power combined."

The Graveler did as was asked of it, and the fake Popo arrived, only to get knocked out by a very hard rollout. _One down, one to possibly go. Please hurry, Popo._

Popo was rushing up the stairs, and finally found what looked to be a generator. He instinctually smashed it with his hammer, having gotten fed up with how long it was taking. He felt a tremor, and felt the illusion get wiped away. Suddenly, he was falling. He saw Red disappear, and gulped.

He suddenly found himself way higher than he was before. He could see clouds below him. That couldn't be good. He screamed.

"Hey, you should know by now not to try and call your loftwing when you don't have a bond with one yet, young child," A man said, catching the climber. "

"Shulk, look out," Ness cried out, before Shulk body slammed him out of the way of another

blast of energy. "Oh, right. Maybe you should be the one telling me to look out…

"Yeah, sounds good to me," Shulk replied, panting.

He had another vision, this time one of him barely dodging another attack: but said attack left the tablet wide open.

"Ness, get behind sir ugly, and prepare your bat: we're about to get an opportunity," Shulk said, jumping back as the attack came.

Ness only had time to throw his bat, which hit the tablet hard, causing it to disintegrate.

"Oh, you'll pay for that," The giant mechon said, before lurching forward, nearly falling on top of Shulk.

"I hope the repairs aren't more than twenty bucks, 'cause that's all I've got," Ness said, before smashing what looked to be a motor. "Though, all in all, I don't really care."

Soon, though, Shulk disappeared. Ness wasn't surprised. He was surprised, however, when he saw he was on a hot-air balloon that had a base shaped like a house. He was even more surprised when he saw a man on a stationary bike with several different strange looking tokens for sale.

"So, are you going to buy something, or are you here to weigh me down?" The man asked, huffing between each word. Ness was surprised he hadn't also puffed and blown this house down.

Luke found his new, hulking figure to have quite a few benefits in the fight against his cylindrical foe. Such as the giant sword he was able to wield. Or the ability to catch the wheely in its path. One drawback, though, was the tremendous loss in speed, though it wasn't really necessary when all the blows that could've been avoided before could now be blocked, and block them he did. The wheely growled, although that could've been interpreted as revving its engines, but Luke knew better than that. It was getting frustrated, and starting to use new tactics.

Luke suddenly found his opponent driving between the many tables littering the control room, and he was unable to catch up. He shouldn't have been very surprised when the wheely jumped onto a table, and then over his armored head. He tried to turn around quickly enough to block, but wasn't fast enough. _I would say don't be like that, but rationally speaking, I am facing down quite the worthy opponent,_ Luke thought to himself. He found himself having a genuine respect for his foe, having never expected a wheel to be so capable of fighting. _Then again, when did I become capable of fighting?_

"I would say 'not bad', but that was pretty good," Luke growled. Yes, the most respectful tone he could put on was a growl. It was probably because of the impact that had nearly removed one of his gauntlets. They might not be golden or anything, but they were still the only reason why Luke didn't flinch when catching the giant wheel that produced a ton of friction every time it charged.

Luke started taking a much more rational approach to things. Changing to a monster had made his thoughts much more warped and random than ever before. (Though it didn't show.) Luke started making his way over to the controls, and started attempting to figure out how to speed up the ship. He could only hope that when he did so, Duke and Charizard weren't in the air to find out. Sadly, Luke's favorite wheel was not done with their fight. He saw a flashing red light, and the image of Duke trapped by an elevator door and the Dubior. He slammed his heavy fist down onto a button that looked like it would be helpful. (After a quick, logical, analysis, of course.)

Max realized that he could get rid of his rocky foe by just luring it into jumping directly over him, and then jumping across a gap. Since the rocky hovered until it had a lock, (I assume that's what it does in the games…) it would hover right over its doom. These kinds of things were Max's specialty. Max jumped as soon as the rocky did, and got lucky. It hovered over the now falling dog, and suddenly dropped like, well, like a rock. (I might be getting my idioms mixed up.) Max barely grabbed onto a platform before he could watch a giant rock fall down to whatever planet might be below.

Duke, however, was not so lucky. The door at the top was closed, since there wasn't an elevator at the top. To put his situation lightly, let's just say Duke really hoped UFOs didn't approve of the concept of roast duck. The Dubior was rising quickly, and the doors weren't opening. The Dubior had surrounded itself with a field of plasma, making flying around it impossible. Duke heard the elevator start to rise again. He also heard a ding, and saw the door open. He had finally gotten out of that little trap. As he got to the top of the stage, he saw Charizard thrashing within the confines of a mechanized claw. Two seconds later, though, the giant Pokémon dropped, having been freed from the claw. The Dubior arrived as well, barely making it out of the elevator shaft before it closed.

"I don't suppose you could help me with my predicament here, could you?" Duke asked, ducking under yet another beam of energy.

"Just stay out of my way, and this thing will regret ever having circuit boards," Charizard growled, his desire to demolish something greatly heightened after the claw got him. Charizard then blasted a pillar of flame from his mouth at the UFO. (Don't question it. It's a pillar, but horizontal.)

Luke finally figured out which button controlled the claws. He also figured out that his strength would have to replace his bananas. He swung his sword downward, narrowly missing the wheely, then let go of the sword and pushed the wheely into the blade of his sword. It was jagged, and Luke thought he heard a pop. The wheely wasn't going to show it, though. It bounced off the blade, hurtling at Luke once more. This time, though, there was a lot more anger in its eyes. (Though Luke couldn't see it since they were on the sides of its body.) He saw a microphone, and assumed it would connect to the whole ship's announcement system.

"Charizard and Duke, get on the ground, and stay there. Or, I guess it'd be the floor in this case. I'm about to speed up the Halberd in order to get rid of the Dubior," Luke shouted, before ducking under a jumping wheely's charge. It broke through the window, and roared down the front of the Halberd. Luke made sure it had nowhere to leap to, though, by completely slowing down the ship. When he was confident that there were no more aggressive wheels on the outside of the ship, he sped it up as fast as he could. Looking through a monitor, he saw the Dubior get left behind very quickly, and get shot down by the Halberd's many turrets. He then saw Duke and Charizard disappear, and assumed that Max warped away as well.

The only two problems left, though, were Luke's position. One, he was still a darknut. Two, he wasn't going anywhere.

While Master Hand had claimed that those four would have to search every stage, he and Crazy were both laughing, since they had sent the four to four of the five stages that were dangerous from their actions. The others were fine. There was just one, pretty huge problem left, but it could be handled.

"There's still the last stage. Shouldn't we be sending Luke there as well?" Crazy asked Master.

"Oh, don't worry about that. He'll arrive very soon. Send the two Links to the last stage. Although I really do hope Luke doesn't arrive. It won't be very good for the timeline, after all…" Master Hand said, the mood getting dark very quickly.

From the shadows, the same figure that had left the stamp was watching the conversation between the two Hands. The person chuckled softly.

"Yes… The timeline. Luke, my boy… Can you beat my sleight of hand? You'd better do so… Oh, you will. The only question is, when will you see the true threat of the Halberd?" The strange person said, and then muttered, "You'd best not let me end it all at the start. I'll be waiting, Luke…"

The person started dashing off into the woods.

"Your friends were able to fend off all of those threats, so how about you?" The person whispered. "Do you what it takes to solve the biggest puzzle in history?"

Author's Notes:

Wow, this was a long chapter. Next chapter won't be so long, I think. Assuming that I don't have four different miniature story lines going on at the same time, of course. Sorry for the abrupt endings to those, by the way. I'm just feeling really impatient right now. There's the school factor, and I've got priorities. (Like school) Anyway, next chapter should be written better… In a while. I've got other things to deal with now. Like other stories, and school, uh, biggies.

Anyway, Buh-Bye


	4. Ch 4: Impeccable Timing

Author's Notes:

To Aurora, thank you for that explanation of the Specter. That gives me a few ideas for future plot… things. (Demonstrating my very specific and to the point writing style right there.) In case if you didn't know, (this applies to everyone) on that sentence with the change I made that you pointed out from chapter 2, I changed it from "Hershel" to "Mister Layton", and now to "Hershel Layton". That should be the last change I make to that sentence. (Because you all clearly couldn't figure out who the main villain of this series is from the first two versions of that sentence. I just had to make it even more obvious.) And yes, the timeline. (Buh-buh-bum)

To Aurora, and everyone else who might've been waiting for a long time for this chapter: I would like to apologize for taking a very long time to get this chapter out. I honestly had plans to do a Christmas chapter for this story and a New Year's chapter for another story I have, but both got cancelled when I got smacked in the face by finals. Then, I know this probably isn't a good excuse for not having anything done over winter break, but it is a very private part of my life (the excuse, that is) that I won't share with you. (I am amazing at apologies, right? Especially the whole grammatical/structuring part of them.)

Sorry.

Also, while this does belong in the summary and/or first chapter, I'm going to put it here. THERE WILL BE MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE _PROFESSOR LAYTON_ SERIES IN THIS STORY. Possibly minor spoilers, but definitely major spoilers. (Yes, I know how that sentence might sound. No, it is not a lack of proofreading. After taking this long, though, to get this chapter out, you might see a lack of proofreading.) For every, single, game. (I think) If you haven't played them all, and are planning on doing so, and don't want to have them all spoiled, stop reading this. (Unless you like it enough that it's just a necessary evil.) If you don't want this story to spoil the entire series, there is a wiki that will spoil it all just as well. Except _The Last Specter_ , I think. Any spoilers for that game, if they are brought to my attention, will be spoilers for me as well.

There'll also be minor spoilers for _The Legend of Zelda_.

Last note here: I'll just say "shift scene" from now on with a lot of exclamation points because I can, and because I think it's a lot better than having a few extra line breaks. (Also, what I was originally doing didn't show up on the website, so, yeah.

Anyway, RESUME

Chapter 4: Impeccable Timing

 _How do I get back to normal?_ Luke wondered to himself. He was pacing around, at least as best as he could in all of his armor. The loud clinking and banging didn't help calm his battle-frenzied nerves. He couldn't shake off this feeling that something was still going on. Luke started thinking about the conditions that had made the stamp start doing stuff. _First time it happened was with a copy capsule. When I touched the stamp to the picture of the hat, it turned into a baton. Then I touched it to a picture of a darknut, and I turned into one. So, this must be based on pictures. Too bad I can't draw._

"Villain, what didst thou do to Luke?" A young man in green asked, busting through the door. "Wait, sorry. I've been practicing for a play recently and I can't stop talking like one of Shakespeare's characters." The man appeared to be Link. "Anyway, what did you do to Luke, hmm?"

"Dude, it's a monster. Monsters don't ever reveal anything. Like, ever," A young boy said, also dressed in green. He was wearing a strange, yellow mask that looked like a fox's face. He looked very much like a younger Link. The Young Link discarded the mask, and took out his sword.

"Guys, it's me. It's Luke," Luke tried to say, but all that came out was a ferocious grunt.

"See? They never reveal anything. All they ever do is try to kill you," Young Link said.

"Thine blade felled Luke. Hither, Young Me; let our blades fell this bloodied foe," Link said.

"Dude, just say 'we'll avenge you, Luke, by killing this monster'," Young Link said, sighing.

"Uh, sorry," Link said sheepishly. "Oh, I got it. Now you die, fool. Yeah, I think I can speak regularly now."

He charged at Luke and swung up with his sword. Luke blocked it with his enormous blade. Young Link took out a bomb, and threw it at Luke. In the same motion, he took out a slingshot, readied it with a small seed, and fired. Luke smacked the bomb away with the flat of his blade, causing it to explode away from all of them.

"Oh, crikey," Luke muttered.

!Shift Scene!

"So, will you buy something, or just gawk?" The man asked Ness.

"S-sorry. Who are you?" Ness asked him, intrigued by this strange man.

"Name's Beedle. You know, of Beedle's Airshop?" Beedle said, exasperated at how much mockery his few potential customers subjected him to. "Now, if you're only here to mock my ways with your insolence, I'll ask you to please leave," He said, starting to get angry. "The only one who's worth the extra weight is Link," Beedle muttered.

"Yeah, uh, thanks for the info," Ness said; he had figured out where he was. He was glad he had taken the time to study all the stages. Although the tournament would probably get cancelled because of some other apocalyptic type event caused by some villain. He couldn't imagine any villain being worse than Tabuu, though.

The airshop suddenly jerked backward, causing Ness to stumble out the door. He would've fallen off of the shop entirely if it weren't for the guardrail. _That is literally the first time that a guardrail has actually been helpful for me in my entire life. Now if we could just get some of those in Final Destination._ He chuckled at that thought.

"What do you find so funny about this situation? We're being attacked by whatever that thing is, and there's nowhere to land for miles. If that destroys the propellers, we're goners. We can't outrun that thing, since it'll gun us down. Wait, is that actually an airship?" Beedle said, sounding like he might faint.

!Shift Scene!

"I'm… sorry?" Popo said, confused.

"Just don't let it happen again. Here, I'll drop you off here," The man said. He was wearing a yellow shirt, a yellow cap that looked a lot like Link's, goggles, and khakis. He was riding a yellow bird. (I'm guessing his favorite color is cerulean) _A loftwing, I'm guessing._ Popo's thoughts were sluggish as he got over the adrenaline rush. He rarely fell off huge structures, and it was even rarer for him to end up in the sky in a foreign land needing a rescue from a man on a giant bird. (And you thought your life was weird?) He was set down near a lighthouse, and gawked at how big it was. Or rather, how devastatingly small it was. And there was a ladder. _Whoever lives here can't possibly be skilled in climbing._ When he looked at the top, he saw Nana waving down at him, excited to see him.

"So, you gonna come up here, or is it too big for you?" Nana asked him with mock, uh, mockery. (Trash talk pro, right there.) She threw down a rope, but Popo was already scaling the lighthouse, finding various footholds and handholds, ignoring the ladder. After all, who needs a ladder when you can go three times the distance while going up just as high?

Popo soon reached the top, and he and Nana tackled each other in a hug. (They both were acting strange to cover up the fact that they were wearing their winter parkas) Popo broke out of Nana's grasp, and propped his hammer up against the guardrail, next to Nana's. _That is literally the only thing guardrails have ever been useful for in my mind. Even then, there are regular walls._

"The view from up here is rather serene, isn't it?" Nana asked, waving her hand out into the distance. The view really was rather spectacular. You could see islands floating in the distance, and loftwings soared gracefully past the two climbers. If they were in a game, it would've been the perfect introductory image, where they would put the title in huge font that you wish was smaller so you could still see the beautiful imagery.

"Wow, the loftwings look so pretty. That giant airship destroying everything in its path makes for a great- wait, what's that airship doing destroying everything in its path?" Popo shouted, having been startled by the sudden sight. He couldn't quite remember what that airship was called, but he knew it was important.

"It's heading in this direction. That's what it's doing," Nana said, gulping. It was a loud gulp too. The kind that was made by someone who knows that they're doomed.

!Shift Scene!

Luke was stuck in a darknut's body, fighting against two of the same legendary hero who defeated darknuts. He was stuck blocking all of their attacks, even when his keen senses picked up the perfect opportunity to attack. After all, he didn't want to harm them.

"You think we don't know that Luke was sent here to stop whatever the Halberd was doing? You think we don't know that defeating you will set this stage right?" Young Link yelled, while Link was doing something much more awesome.

"Young Me, get down," Link shouted, sliding across one of the tables while drawing his bow with a bomb arrow. He fired it right before sliding off the table. Luke slashed it in half, but the blast still happened. Luke didn't feel it under all his armor, but one of his gauntlets fell off.

"Hey, is that Skyloft?" Young Link said, calm at first, then scared stupid a second later. "That's your plan, eh? Destroy Skyloft so the timeline is messed up, even more. Wait, that would erase the whole timeline. Link, he's going to erase the timeline. We're part of that timeline. Oh, you're so going down."

He took out a bracelet, put it on, and punched one of the switches. It slammed forward, making the Halberd angle downwards. Luke knew what he had to do. He could figure out the controls much more quickly than Young Link could, based on the boy's fumbling with switches and pressing of colorful buttons. Luke saw the switch that controlled the Halberd's speed. _If you go faster, you don't need as much force pushing you up. Yeah, that sounds about right._ He pushed the Halberd to full speed. The airship approached a barrier of clouds, and bounced off of it.

"Oh, you big, clinky, devil. Thinking increasing the speed will allow your stalling to win out," Link said, readying another bomb arrow. He fired it, and missed. The arrow crashed through the left window, and hit a wooden house that appeared to be flying. "Shoot…" He fired another arrow, and missed again. "What is going on with my aim?"

Luke seized the opportunity to slow down the Halberd, and noticed a green blur. A moment later, he was punching a giant metal ball away from him. Young Link had apparently stolen Link's ball and chain, equipped his bunny hood, and used his golden gauntlets fling the giant ball at Luke. How Link didn't notice a metal ball bigger than he was being taken out of his tunic, no one will ever know. Luke punched a switch to angle the Halberd as far up as he could. Luke started hitting buttons and switches that he thought would be helpful, and most of them were. Others, well, weren't so helpful. Like the button that sent out a bunch of drones that were now attacking the flying house.

!Shift Scene!

Ness really didn't like the explosive arrow that came flying at his face. He managed to hit that with his bat. He also didn't like the arrow that it collided with midflight. Ness especially didn't like the drones that had deployed from the Halberd, or the fact that the Halberd was now attacking Skyloft. He was using his PK powers to defend the air shop as best as he could, but it was tough. He was currently standing at the top of the shop, firing PK fires and thunders at the drones. They were now all focused on him. Not very good when you have about one square foot to dodge beams of plasma. (Or .09290304 square meters. Going metric, baby.)

The drones were zipping about, leaving Ness on the defense. At least they weren't targeting the platform on which he stood. _One less way for them to drag me down, I guess,_ he thought sourly.

Then, one of them fired a missile. Ness hit it with his bat, sending it right back towards the drone. It hit the drone, causing it to explode. From where he was standing, the explosion blocked a bit of an island. What he saw gave him some hope, though. Oh, not the view of an island partially blocked by an explosion. No, it was what he saw flying far out behind that explosion. Maybe someone was coming to help him and Beetle get out of there. What Ness saw, was a blur of red.

!Shift Scene!

 _Wow, that monster has really gone over the top. I didn't think I'd ever actually have to save Skyloft,_ Link thought to himself. The stories had gotten it all wrong, apparently. Link would have to hurry and stop that giant monster before it destroyed Skyloft. That would be very bad. _How is this even possible, though?_

Link jumped to dodge yet another giant projectile sword, thingy. There was an explosion as it hit something, probably mechanical. When he landed, he felt a slight dip. But they had gotten used to that by now, so it was relatively fine. He just had to make sure he didn't do it too often, or they would go down, which would be very bad.

Link was quickly approaching the monster's mask, and was shocked by what he saw. _Is that… me? How is there another me? Why is he inside that monster's head? Wait, there's a child me fighting beside him? And then there's that monster they're fighting. Oh, geez,_ Link suddenly felt very confused. He looked away, and saw that Beedle's Airshop was in trouble. There was a young boy on it, too. The boy looked capable, though. He had a club out, and was using it to whack those strange projectiles back. He sometimes absorbed the brighter ones, which seemed to give him a little boost.

Link decided to try something that he hadn't done before. He got out his bow, and readied it. Everyone in Skyloft knew just how good a shot he was.

"Steady now, Maroon," Link said, using his legs to gently guide his Loftwing. The duo had done that last part before, but Link had never fired an arrow while on his Loftwing. He heard an energy beam approaching them very quickly. Link only had a split second to aim, and then he fired. In the same motion, he got out his shield, rotated his upper body about 90°, and blocked the beam from hitting Maroon's tail feathers. He was doing things that were **so** inadvisable while riding a Loftwing. If he wasn't careful, he would end up making Maroon lose her balance and plummet. They were quickly approaching the airshop.

A second later, the arrow hit one of the drones, causing it careen into another drone, while it fired a missile. The arrow had hit in just the right place, which also made it rotate as it started firing, so the missile hit another missile, which blew both of them up, right in front of a cluster of drones that gotten together from their random flying patterns. _I can see why everyone on Skyloft calls me "The Goddess Archer" now,_ Link thought to himself. His spirits fell, though, when he saw a flash of diamonds at the lighthouse. He had no time to deal with that demon.

"Hey, kid, will you be alright if I try to take down that monster? Also, do you know how to take down that monster?" Link asked the young kid. He looked like he would be fine.

"Yeah, I should be, hopefully. Also, you know that the Halberd's not a monster… Wait a minute… Never mind. Name's Ness," Ness stammered realizing what was going on.

"Yeah, I'll just have to take it down from the belly of the beast. Although I guess now it has to go upward very quickly," Link said, afraid of what might happen even if the giant monster cleared Skyloft safely. A flash of diamonds only meant one thing, and it was never a good sign.

!Shift Scene!

Everything was fine until the Halberd showed up. Everything was pretty bad until Ghirahim showed up. From there, it only got worse. Nana and Popo had to rush down the lighthouse to avoid being blasted off of it. (They weren't about to have that happen again.) As they looked around, they saw drones flying into the town, blasting everything. It was meant to be a massacre against a peaceful people. The people on their birds were rushing around, trying to get everyone to safety. There was one demon that was doing his very best to make sure that didn't happen, though. (Guess who.)

Nana and Popo knew what they had to do. They started rushing over to the demon lord, screaming their war cry.

"FOR EVEREST," They both yelled in unison. They were surprised when Ghirahim didn't even flinch at the sound of them, or even pay a bit of attention to the duo. They were even more surprised when he lashed out with his sword right before they could smash him with their hammers.

"Oh, I can feel your rhythm, and war cries aren't fitting the bill. You know," Ghirahim said, ducking under a swipe from Nana, and then jumping over a swing from Popo, "an army could walk in unison, but to have the same rhythm, well, that doesn't happen. Even with two people who might be in perfect sync, having the same rhythm is nearly impossible. And yet, you two have such a rare and fine thing. Oh, you're wondering what I mean by all this talk of rhythm, aren't you?" He continued, firing a beam from his sword at Popo. "Too bad for you, 'cause I'm not telling you." He laughed, and disappeared in a flash of diamonds. "Oh yeah, and also, be wary of my own monsters."

The demon reappeared behind Nana and tried to stab her with his perfectly curved blade, but she jabbed her hammer's handle into his knee while Popo ran over, hammer poised so it could be slammed into the ground. When Popo swung, it did hit the ground, as Ghirahim had teleported onto a nearby rooftop.

"You'll have to do better than that. Oh, where are my manners? Name's Ghirahim," He said, taking a deep performer's bow, complete with the dramatic hand motions and everything. As he bowed, dozens of arrowheads appeared out of nowhere and shot at the Ice Climbers. They both dodged behind the nearest cover, which was a door. Ghirahim teleported so he was right outside the door, and waited a few seconds before lashing out with his blade. It was met with a hammer. Ghirahim had expected that. He punched downward, expecting another hammer to meet his stomach. Instead, he was blasted away by Nana rapidly spinning herself with her hammer outstretched, leveled at his chest. Her body was shielded by bits of snow and ice propelled outwards by the force she was creating.

"I didn't expect your rhythm to change. And yet, both of yours changed in sync. A beautiful harmony of tempos, a duet of moves, but sadly, every dance must end at some point. Will ours be with the monster threatening this town? It would be a true shame, you know," Ghirahim said, grinning maniacally. He snapped his fingers, and a single knife flew at Popo. It was angled perfectly, concealing a second, but much smaller knife. Nana saw it, though.

"There's a second knife there," She yelled as the knives flew at Popo. Popo smacked the first one, and then the second one. Both Ghirahim and Nana were dumbfounded. At least, Nana was until she processed the fact there were chunks of ice in front of Popo.

"Well played, well played," Ghirahim said, doing a slow clap. Of course, that only summoned more knives. Ghirahim started teleporting around, flinging knives in random directions. Nana and Popo ran together so they were back to back, and started swinging. Knives hit the ground with a hollow clink. The Ice Climbers hadn't even known they could swing their hammers so quickly. The barrage soon ended, replaced with Ghirahim's sporadic teleporting. He always landed near enough to land a blow against the duo. The fight quickly turned into a game of _Whack-a-Demon_. Both climbers decided to stop wasting time, and started hitting clumps of ice at their opponent. Popo hit him first, and rushed in with his hammer. He pounded Ghirahim into the ground, and then smacked him away.

"Hah… Y-you think defeating me will mean anything? I can teleport away from here. You-you can't," Ghirahim said, speaking through heavy breaths. He had a point; a very, very, good point. Both Nana and Popo thought that he didn't need to prove his point, but come on, they were fighting. Why wouldn't he teleport away?

"One day you'll know what I mean. One day, when it counts for the most, you both will know how to use one's rhythm, and when you do, remember me." Ghirahim caught his breath, took another bow, then teleported away. The Ice Climbers both knew their battle was over for now, and ran off to look for people who needed help.

!Shift Scene!

Luke was starting to tire inside of his set of armor. He had lost both gauntlets, his helmet, and boots. (Which were not made for walking.) He was figuring out what each switch did while defending himself from the barrage of attacks Link and his younger counterpart were subjecting him to. Link saw something out the window, and looked stunned for a few seconds, lowering his sword. Luke looked out, and saw the various switches, buttons, and levers had formed a rather special shape. Also, there was a third Link that took down about ten drones with one arrow. Luke tried to pull out the stamp that had gotten him into this mess. He felt the ship suddenly drop a bit, and saw that unless if some weight was taken off of the ship, it was going to go straight through Skyloft.

Luke got the stamp in his hand when Young Link threw his boomerang, hitting a switch out of place. Luke used his huge sword to move it back when Link slammed his sword into Luke's back, releasing another piece of armor. Luke quickly slammed his stamp into the control panel. He felt a huge weight being released, and then felt like his normal self.

"What th- Luke?" Link exclaimed, startled again.

"Uh, hi?" Luke stammered, "Listen, there's no time to explain: something just boarded the ship, and I'm pretty sure the Halberd will only barely make it over Skyloft. We need to find whatever it is that boarded the ship, and get it off."

"Uh, I saw Ghirahim somewhere, so there's almost certainly a lot of monsters on Skyloft and possibly on this ship. Someone needs to stay here," Young Link said, grimacing as something rammed the door to the control room. It was clearly meant to withstand such an attack, as it barely moved.

"I think the bigger problem will be getting out, not staying in here." Luke said, coming up with a plan. "Link, can you ready another bomb arrow? Young Link, help me open the door. Link, you need to fire the arrow as soon as the door's open. Got it?"

"Hopefully?" Both Links muttered at the same time.

The Links and Luke got into position. Link readied his arrow, and Young Link gripped the door.

"Luke, stay back. This door should open easily enough with my strength alone," Young Link bragged.

"Okay. 3, 2, 1… Now," Luke shouted. Young Link flung the door open as Link shot three arrows. Three explosions were heard, and an arrow zipped directly over Link's arm, pulling back the drawstring without breaking it. A bokoblin fell down, crying out in surprise before dissipating into smoke.

"You…" Another Link said, his voice a mix between spite and wonder, as he walked towards the three of them. He started to draw his bow, but Young Link was faster, mostly because of his bunny hood, tackling the third Link to the ground.

"Uh, guys, we need to hurry up and take out the monsters on the airship. I guess I should stay since I'm the only one here who at least somewhat knows what all these switches and levers do," Luke said.

"First, you three had better explain why you brought this demon to Skyloft. Then, you need to explain what exatly is going on, as well as how Ghirahim broke through the cloud barrier," The third Link said. (I'll just call him Skyward Link.)

"Okay, the first part is a long story, this ship isn't a demon, and have you even seen how big those holes are in the cloud barrier with the giant beacons of light?" Link said, taking a deep breath when he finished the sentence. "Also, we need your help taking down as many of the monsters on this ship as possible. And why are you so good with a bow? Our main weapon is supposed to be the bow." He finished the last sentence, and grimaced, looking like he was trying to hold back some Shakespearian curses.

"So I've been told. I use the bow far more often because I find it a lot more useful than the sword. Plus, I've been known for my skills with projectiles," Skyward Link said, grinning. "Come on, let's take out these monsters already. He ran off, drawing his bow. Link followed suit, pulling out a giant top and getting on. It spun into the wall, and actually attached. It zoomed down the corridor. Young Link didn't go, turning to Luke instead.

"If the monsters want to crash this thing into Skyloft, they're gonna want to be aiming it down. We're still way too far out to let the monsters even shift the current settings on the controls. It would cause a collision. We can't go to the left or the right. There's gale force winds keeping the Halberd on a very straight path, according to the monitors," Young Link stammered. The fear on his face was that of a child. A child that hadn't shown himself for years. Both boys knew precisely what would happen should they fail to keep the Halberd from crashing into Skyloft. It was then that the three headed beasts piled in.

!Shift Scene!

Ness could see the island. It was so close. The drones got to it first, of course. Now it was the dustiest island Ness had ever seen. Beedle somehow knew where he was going, as he pedaled right past the island instead of stopping at it.

"Heeeeeeey, are the drones gone yet?" Beedle shouted at Ness.

"No, but a good number of them are gone." Ness replied. He could hear the middle aged man's weariness in his breath. How he could possibly do this all day, he would never know. "Hey, would any of your merchandise be helpful in destroying these things?"

There was no reply as a drone shot a laser through the doorway of the shop. Ness had rushed right out and hadn't bothered closing it. Ness heard something hit the ground, making a loud thump.

"Beedle? Are you okay?" Ness asked him, unsure if he was still conscious. He fired a PK thunder at a drone, and it actually hit, causing the drone to spark and then fall as the drone shorted out.

"Y-Yeah, I'm fine," Beedle said shakily, "just hurry up and take out those drones."

Ness didn't reply, instead focusing on the last three drones. If he took those out, they should be in the clear. One of them shot a rocket. He hit with his trusty bat, sending it flying back at the drone. Ness had to destroy the rocket, though, as it turned around, starting to follow a loftwing and its rider. _Heat seaking missiles, huh? I'll give you some better heat to follow in that case._ Ness sent a PK flame at the drone as it fired another missile, seemingly making them out of thin air. (Video game logic, anyone? I can certainly debate it with anyone.) The flame hit the drone and, well, set it aflame. The missile did a 180°, destroying the drone, because fire certainly won't mess a drone up.

The second one fired another laser, this time at one of the propellers. Ness jumped up to meet the beam, pulling out a franklin badge. He successfully managed to hit the laser, (Never thought I'd say that) sending it back at the drone. There was only one left. Just one. Things should've been easy from there on out. The only problem, was that it had started exclusively targeting the propeller farthest from Ness, firing at an angle where he couldn't do anything about it without going onto the propeller.

"Beedle, we have a slight problem," Ness started saying.

"Then what do you consider all those drones that were blowing us up earlier?" Beedle retorted spitefully. This kid had brought him nothing but trouble.

"I can't hit the last drone, and I can't deflect its attacks away from the propellors without jumping on top of them," Ness said.

"Then do that. They should be able to take your weight. You certainly wouldn't be the first to go onto the propellers, and you're just a child that jumping onto them. Usually it's inexperienced knights-in-training that are hurtling down after falling off their birds." Ness found it disturbing that Beedle considered that a usual thing.

Ness jumped up, landed in the center of one propeller, and nearly fell off because it was rotating too quickly. He regained his balance after some slightly over exaggerated hand swirling, and then focused his attention back on the drone. It had already gotten the other propeller to catch fire, and the propeller was going to break apart from the flames. The drone apparently had a flamethrower, as it was still bathing the propeller in flames. It was slowly moving down, and it would soon set the rest of the air shop on fire. Ness leaped onto the other propeller, landing in the center, this time keeping his balance. (I can tell you with near certainty that it's a lot easier to stick the landing when a perfect landing is the only thing separating a raging fire from your face)

He only then realized he had no means of extinguishing the fire. _Unless if PK vortex will do it._ He tried doing the move, and it seemed to extinguish the fire, but more flames were crawling up the propellor's base; Ness had only extinguished the blades of the propeller. He jumped off the propeller, slamming his bat into the drone on the way down. The drone smashed into the roof of the airborne shop, exploding upon contact, to which Beedle responded with a piercing scream, uttering words that shouldn't even exist in the mind of someone Ness's age. (I'll let you fill in the blanks however you wish.)

Ness leaned against the charred propeller, and finally got to look out at Skyloft. It would've been one of those moments where they show the title of the game, other than the fact that the Halberd was quickly closing in on the giant island, and there was a lot of fire. Ness knew there was nothing more that he could do from his current position, though, except hope for the best.

!Shift Scene!

The two Links were rushing down the corridor, or at least Skyward Link was. Link was on his spinner. They soon found a group of bokoblins doing, well, who knows what they were actually doing. Link waited for the perfect opportunity, then jumped off of his spinner, and slashed his sword through one of the bokoblins. A second one would've hit Link, but his ancient counterpart was far quicker with a bow than Hyrule ever gave him credit for. The bokoblin fell down, its own sword impaling it. Link met a spiked club with his shield when he heard the crack of a whip. That same whip came back with a sword attached to it, barely missing Link's arm.

"Stop doing that with your weapons," Link shouted; it didn't help him concentrate on the heat of battle when his arm was in constant peril of his ally's attacks.

"I'm not going to hit your arm, if that's what you're worried about," Skyward Link assured him.

"Instead, you're going to gracefully rip my glove in half with a single arrow," Link said sarcastically, fully intending to mock the other Link. He got out his ball and chain and threw it into a group of bokoblins. An archer shot an arrow, (Surprise!) and Skyward Link quickly bashed Link away with his shield, somehow having appeared next to him. The arrow imbedded itself in the wall down the corridor.

"H-how did you go from there t-to here?" Link stammered.

"I ran, very, very, quickly," Skyward Link said, as if he hadn't seemingly teleported. He used his slingshot to strike the archer's hand, causing the next arrow to fly into one of its own brethren.

The two Links charged the remaining group of bokoblins. The monsters would've had a severe advantage in numbers if the corridors weren't so tight that they had to bunch up so close together. Link got on his spinner, attached it to the wall, took out his ball and chain, and once he was close enough to the cluster of monsters, jumped off of the wall and started spinning, bowling over the entire group of monsters. Some of them were even defeated. Skyward Link quickly picked off the rest of them with the precise usage of his beetle to drop a bomb… or three… or ten. You know what, it was precise. (How else could one balance ten bombs on top of each other while moving? And you thought balancing your books was hard…)

"Did we just take out twenty monsters in less than ten seconds? I might be wrong, but I do believe that is at least somewhat, uh, awesome?" Skyward Link sounded unsure of the awesomeness of what they had just done.

"At least you're not so skilled you aren't even sure what qualifies as awesome," Link muttered under his breath, because such conditions are clearly horrible.

"Well, I do believe that made the ship a lot lighter, at least," Skyward Link said.

"Now there's only the rest of the monsters on board," Link groaned as the two ran down yet another corridor.

!Shift Scene!

Ghirahim watched the onslaught of monsters on Skyloft get crushed by the Ice Climbers, and the monsters on the giant air demon get killed, as it seemed to be rising. At this rate, it wouldn't destroy Skyloft, which would be a setback, to say the least. It was, after all, where Link got the majority of his supplies. The strange man laughed as he watched Skyloft burn. The demon's magic had made sure the air demon was horizontally guaranteed to crash, but had been warned against doing so vertically. As the air demon approached Skyloft, Ghirahim looked with dismay as it passed over Skyloft, only hitting the top of the lighthouse. Link always got in his way, stopping him from having any fun. Meanwhile, the strange man that had advised him on calling the winds to guide the air demon only smirked, despite his failure, and the danger he was in.

"You think this is what success looks like?" Ghirahim snarled.

"Success for one often means failure for another: manipulation, demon, is something you should be well versed in," The man said passively, his face turning blank, not from fear, which Ghirahim had expected, but nonchalance.

"Yes, I am. Such experience is how I **know** how important it is to be careful regarding who it is being manipulated. A mere soldier can cause a lot of damage when convinced to kill a king. A hero can destroy the world when he has nothing but a select few pieces of the puzzle. In almost all cases, it is important to make sure they are doing so without realizing what their actions will actually do. A king, on the other hand, can lose an army. But when the dust settles, this king still has more than enough power to smash you into the dirt," Ghirahim stated menacingly, pulling a sword out of nowhere and slashing at the man.

He reacted perfectly, though, pulling out a sword of his own, and blocked the slice with ease. He sliced downward to the right, knocking Ghirahim's sword down before he could even start the slash he was about to do. Ghirahim had never met someone so proficient in swordplay, or anyone who could read him like a new book, for that manner. Ghirahim conjured up knives behind the man, sending them at his back while thrusting his blade at his opponent's heart. The man dodged all of the blades, Ghirahim's sword barely skimming his black coat. The man thrust his own sword at the demon king, stabbing him in his sword arm.

"You might be able to manipulate soliders, heros, and leaders, but my skill in deception is unmatched by any of this world. Probably unmatched by any world, to be quite frank. But you should know, this is my success. Our failure, of course, but my success nonetheless. I'm done with you, and this world." The mysterious man walked away, somehow disappearing, leaving Ghirahim on his own to wonder what had just happened.

!Shift Scene!

Luke and his friends had all gotten back to the smash mansion, and had just finished telling the two Hands what had happened. Besides Skyward Link, who stayed behind, mostly because he was from Skyloft and still needed to finish saving that world.

"This is disturbing, very disturbing. Someone manipulated Hyrule's timeline. Quite frankly, everyone should know it is already way too complicated without someone going in and trying to destroy it. Whoever did this came eerily close, too. We all need to tread with caution from here on out. You all did good today, but we need to figure out who did this, and stop them. However, this won't be possible in the near future, as there must be a tournament. While that goes on, Crazy and I will look into this," Master Hand told the group of friends, and Link and Young Link, "or I'll do it on my own after spending a few hours trying to convince Crazy to help me." He muttered just loud enough for everyone to hear him. The group laughed. While they were all talking, the culprit watched them through the window, hiding behind a tree.

"Yes, enjoy your success. You do deserve it. Soon, though, Luke, you'll learn just how much I've already accomplished in what little time I've spent, or maybe the proper term is impacted. After all, it only takes the manipulation of the right emotions and a few minutes to change the way one turns out." The man said ominously to no particular audience. He started walking off, leaving behind only a handheld mirror.

Author's Notes:

Things are getting dark here. I checked chapter three to see if I had deleted a certain excerpt that will play a large role in next chapter. As far as I can tell, I did. Maybe I didn't, though. I think I can make things work despite missing that excerpt, but you probably would've forgotten about it anyway. Quite frankly, I have no idea. There is, though, an excerpt that will play a large role in one of the next few chapters, though.

What is mirror for? Is it really for making sure you didn't mess up your hair in that wind tunnel? Or is it secretly a nuke? (No, it's not.)

Again, apologies to anyone who was waiting for a long time for this chapter to come out. As usual, helpful criticism, (besides saying I need to learn the definition of punctuality) ideas for new moves for Luke, (especially with his new weapon) and other general hooey that everyone asks for in a review are always appreciated. Also the more specific hooey that is more appropriate for this story.

Lastly, while I do very much appreciate reviews, please don't put what you think might be the excerpts mentioned above or other important details. A huge part of the whole _Professor Layton_ series, at least for me, is getting to figure things out on my own as the story progresses. (A.K.A. getting the last details in the mysteries given and then letting the plot fit it all together for me.) This story is somewhat like that, except I think there are some obscure details that most certainly do give away huge plot elements. Don't be the guy who spoils the story that isn't even finished yet.

Extremely late chapter: check.

Bad humor: check.

Life lesson in the Author's Notes that no one wants: check.

I believe my work here is done. (On this chapter, not on this website.) Besides proofreading. Insert narcissistic comments here about how proofreading is just reading my own work when I do it for my own writings here.


	5. Chapter 5: New Competition

Ch 5

Author's Notes:

Sorry for taking so long on this. I really don't have any excuses, except that I couldn't do any work on any of my writing because I didn't have my laptop.

Now that I'm done with that little tidbit, this chapter is not what I originally planned it to be. Instead, this chapter will be taking some of the new fighters, and showcasing their powers in my fanfic.As in, the new fighters might not have the same attacks as they do in the actual game. (Super Smash Bros; their attacks in this story are largely based on their canon games.) I will only be writing the details of a few fights, in order to avoid making this chapter longer than the rest of the story so far combined.

In case I'm being too vague, this chapter is meant to be more an intermission that will introduce

more of the new characters, and establish the differences between Rosalina's fighting style in Super Smash Bros compared to this. There are probably going to be other characters who also fight differently than they do in-game, so just be aware. I'm specifically changing Rosalina's fighting style to be based more upon what we can actually see the lumas doing, as well as what Rosalina can do. For instance, whereas in Super Smash Bros the lumas shoot star bits, in Mario Galaxy the wii remote's cursor is the same shape as Rosalina's wand, and can shoot out star bits, so I think that Rosalina is the one who can shoot star bits using her wand. If you want to know the basis for any other changes, you can PM me.

To Aurora:

That's a rather extensive list. I don't see what you mean when you say you don't understand common sense, as that was a perfectly valid chain of logic, (although I'm not experienced in picking out logical fallacies) that has so far been correct. I always appreciate your commentary.

A Puzzle Unsolved: New Competition

"So, I guess I get to watch a fight for once, then," Luke said, feeling more relieved than he was expecting. Today was supposed to be a day for more applicants to fight some of the currently registered competitors for their spots. It didn't really make much sense to Luke, as the applicants were already moved into the mansion. Nana and Popo were apparently going to fight another duo, but that was supposed to be the last fight.

"Yeah, but I'm surprised that you already got your spot in the tournament. Although I guess you probably did get the long end of the wish bone. Now you don't have to fight any of the really good competitors," Ness said, realizing what he had said, and quickly taking his hands to his mouth before it could get him into any more trouble. "Oh, sorry."

"It's fine. Besides, you're right. I only won because I knew what Red's Pokémon were doing before they did it. I also managed to shock them all. If I had been fighting pretty much anyone else, I almost certainly would've lost, as I'm still trying to figure out how to use these powers," Luke said, sighing at the realization.

"Anyway, who's up first?"

"Young Link, and I believe her name is… uh… Angel Killa'," Ness guessed, having never been that good with names.

"Bayonetta," Pit told the two, sounding a bit irritated, "actually. You weren't even close, Ness. I'd be surprised if she didn't make it into the tournament. She's got some serious power, you know," he continued. "But just between you and me, I'm really hoping she doesn't," Pit whispered to the two of them, just loudly enough for almost everyone around them to hear the two. "You know, since she _is_ an angel killer."

"So what exactly are the rules on what a fighter can and can't use?" Luke asked, realizing he probably should have done so before he fought Red.

"Basically, one of our attacks has already been predefined as a final smash. We can only use said attack if we break a smash ball. Outside of that, pretty much anything goes," Ness explained.

Luke watched as two bridges extended out to the opposite sides of the platform where the fight would take place. Luke along with the majority of the smashers, would be watching from the bleachers, far enough away that they were out of the blast zone of the more violent attacks. Anyone who actually reached the bleachers from the platform was already done, anyway, and would just get taken back to the platform on those weird disc things.

A woman walked onto one side of the platform, holding four guns at once: two in her hands, and two on her feet. She was dressed entirely in black, wearing glasses that had what looked like rhinestones on the edges. On the other side came Young Link.

The Announcer's voice boomed, "This is a 2-stock match. For this battle, anything goes. Match, begin!"

The woman, who Luke assumed was Bayonetta, immediately started shooting at Young Link. The boy already had his shield out, though, and blocked all of the woman's shots.

"So, that's the infamous Umbran Witch? This is actually pretty underwhelming," Pit said quietly, sighing in relief.

The witch was advancing rather slowly, now firing one gun, which made Luke wonder where all those bullets were coming from. Link (I'll just refer to him as that for now) turned away from Bayonetta, now propping his shield up with his back, and put on a mask. He was still at the edge of the platform. From what Luke could see, the mask looked a lot like a bomb. Meanwhile, Bayonetta started moving a lot quicker, approaching Link a few seconds later. When Bayonetta was only a few feet away, Link turned around, put his shield between the two of them, and blew his face up. Bayonetta was launched half way across the platform, sticking the landing perfectly. Link, on the other hand, looked unaffected by the bomb he had put on his face.

"That's a nice little parlor trick, boy, but you're going to have to do better than that," Bayonetta said, sneering as she brushed some dust off her shoulder. Link nocked a deku nut in his slingshot, firing as Bayonetta started running towards him. She slid under the projectile, and started moving a lot faster all of a sudden, firing the guns in her hands at the mask as she approached her target. Link took off the volatile mask, threw it to the ground, and jumped off of the platform, firing another deku nut, this time at the mask. Bayonetta got to the mask first, though, kicking it off the platform, and into the deku nut. The mask blew up in Link's face, again. This time, it launched him away from the platform. Link managed to use his hookshot to get back up to the platform, and rolled right into Bayonetta's shoe.

"Trust me, kid, when I tell you that your little mask is not going to beat me," the witch said, shooting Link away from her. He nearly rolled off the edge, but caught his balance before that could happen.

"Trust me, witch, when I tell you that I have plenty more, uh, 'parlor tricks'," Link said, pulling out his bunny hood.

Bayonetta laughed when Link put on said bunny hood, "I can assure you right now that enthusiasm for Easter is not my weakness." When Link started running at her a lot faster than was natural, she merely moved to the side and put her foot out. For whatever reason, that seemed to do the trick. "How can you possibly expect to win when you're falling for the literal oldest trick in the book?" She summoned a giant fist that punched Link skyward, jumping up after him. On the way up, though, he put on his Deku mask, transforming into a Deku scrub, and started floating, and spitting deku nuts at Bayonetta. He found his mark, shooting his foe back down to the ground. He moved directly above her, and put on his goron mask. He transformed again, and slammed himself into the ground, right in the middle of the platform. Bayonetta rolled away at the last moment, and started moving extremely fast again, this time summoning a giant foot that kicked Link off the platform, and then returned to her normal speed.

"Your little masks are starting to become a bit redundant, wouldn't you agree?" She said, running over to the young boy, still a goron. He took off the mask too late, though, falling below the safe level. He was brought back to the top, riding one of those platform things, having lost his first stock.

"So you like playing with demons, huh? What happens when the demons fight back?" Link said, his face darkening, getting a lot more aggressive. He pulled out yet another mask, which looked a lot like his own face, except with war paint and fully white eyes. Almost everyone gasped at the sight of the mask, save Bayonetta and Luke.

"So you finally want to start using the big boy toys, do you?" Bayonetta said mockingly, taking a few steps back.

"The witch hunts will be over by the time I'm done with you," Link growled, his tone becoming darker than it ever would've been under normal circumstances.

"You wouldn't be the first to say such… poppycock, dear." And then they started firing at each other. Link's sword was firing huge beams, and he was able to swing very quickly. Bayonetta's guns, though, were far more accurate, hitting their mark far more often. Bayonetta was dodging all of the sword beams, slowing making her way towards her foe.

"You might not flinch, but the damage is still there, and you've taken a whole lot of it by now, dear," Bayonetta taunted, narrowly dodging another beam, and starting to move a whole lot faster again. She ran up to her demonic foe, and kicked him in the groin. She then summoned another giant black fist, punching Link off the stage, and out past the boundary.

"Match, over." The announcer boomed, "The winner is Bayonetta."

"Perhaps she isn't so underwhelming," Pit said, and then he fainted. He missed many of the following matches, but woke up in time to see Palutena and Dark Pit fighting Snake and Wolf. They won, and Pit fainted again.

"So… do you think he's going to faint again when he wakes up?" Ness asked Luke. Luke couldn't tell if he was joking or not, because his voice was serious, while the grin on his face wasn't.

"Possibly, though I don't see how he could possibly be the head of Palutena's guard," Luke replied, sighing. Luke had seen a lot of things that day, some of them very predictable. For instance, when Pichu was to fight Mewtwo, it just ran off the ledge as soon as the fight started, getting supportive cries from the crowd surrounding the battlefield. Luke almost worried that there would protests over such actions. Those fights were in the morning, before the lunch break.

!Shift Scene!

Some of the fights in the afternoon were surprising, unlike the morning, whose only shock was Bayonetta beating the Fierce Deity with such ease. The afternoon lead to alternates for some fighters being found: Alph beat the adult Hero of Time, only to be told that he would be an alternate for Olimar, and all of the Koopalings became alternates for Bowser Jr, who beat Daisy with the help of his clown car.

The most surprising fight of all, though, was when Nana and Popo fought against Rosalina and her Lumas. It was to be the last fight of the day, starting late in the evening, when the stars were already out. The perfect backdrop for such a brawl. A rather extreme chill filled the air; the battleground was surrounded by both fighters' elements.

"I can't-a believe Rosalina hasn't tried-a to get into the tournament yet. She totally has-a what it takes to win the whole-a thing," Mario said.

"Is she really that good?" Luke asked, feeling like nobody could possibly be skilled enough to be an automatic winner in a fight amongst everyone already present at the tournament.

"She isn't-a lying when she says she wields-a the power of the cosmos," Mario replied.

Everyone had already taken their seats in the bleachers, and despite the peace created by the starry night, the tension was thick as whispers went around about the upcoming battle between one of the stronger pairs of fighters, and the princess who was said to wield the power of the cosmos.

The chatter in the bleachers came to a halt as the announcer started speaking, "For today's final battle, we have a synchronized duo who has almost exclusively participated in team matches, and we have the princess of the cosmos. On one side, we have the Ice Climbers, and on the other, we have Rosalina. This will be a single stock match, the only item being a single smash ball." The announcer continued speaking, but it was drowned out by the cheering of the Ice Climbers' fans as they were brought onto the stage. Rosalina shot out of the sky, gently landing on the other side of the arena, as one of her lumas followed. There was a collective gasp from the crowd at the entrance, and no one noticed more lumas going over to the bleachers, taking a seat near Luke, who wondered if they were only there to cheer for their friend.

!Shift Scene!

Nana and Popo were already starting to freak out, and they had only seen the entrance that their opponent had made.

"So… she can fly, apparently," Nana said, hoping Popo would have some miracle strategy against flying.

"It looked a lot more like she had jumped _really_ high, based on the arc she took through the air, actually," Popo replied, as if being able to jump that high was better than being able to fly.

"What about the star creature? Do you think it's going to be a problem?" Nana asked.

"I don't think it would be here if it wasn't. We need to figure out what we're going to do once we've seen what those two are capable of," Popo said.

"Ready… Fight," the announcer shouted.

Rosalina stayed where she was, her wand pointed at the Ice Climbers warily. Her Luma was bouncing on the air by her side. Nana and Popo started advancing, each going to the left and right, respectively. There was a silence, as the crowd sat at the edge of their seats, wondering who would make the first move, and what exactly Rosalina was capable of. She waved her wand, making a series of rapid movements. Luma charged at Nana, and Rosalina fired off a short burst of star bits from her wand at Popo. Neither saw the sudden attacks coming, and the star bits struck Popo square in the chest, stunning him for a brief moment. Nana tried to swing at Luma, but the small star child darted out of the hammer's reach, and then grabbed hold of Nana, causing her to freeze in place. Rosalina waved her wand in a circle, and Luma followed suit, spinning its small body, which knocked Nana back a few feet. Rosalina thrust her wand forward, and Luma followed the spin attack with a quick charge attack, knocking Nana down to the ground. Rosalina started advancing on Popo, who was also approaching her, his hammer raised defensively, ready for any more projectiles. The two stopped a few feet from each other, with Popo ready to pounce with his hammer, and Rosalina appearing to be quite relaxed. Meanwhile, Nana got up, rolling out of the way of another one of the Luma's attempts to grab her, and swung her hammer, striking Luma's small, star-shaped body. Luma was caught off guard, and was flung onto the ground, right by the edge of the platform.

"You are really annoying," Nana said. The Luma started producing noises that Nana assumed were its angry noises. Rosalina waved her wand, and Luma starting flying back over to her. Nana caught the small creature with her hammer, sending it flying over to the other side of the stage.

Popo used the small window of opportunity to smack Rosalina with his hammer, but she blocked it with her wand with one fluid motion, quickly sending the hammer back via star bits.

"You're pretty strong," Popo said, feeling slightly incredulous. Granted, he himself wasn't toppling mountains with one mighty swing from his hammer, but he also wasn't that weak. Rosalina didn't reply to the compliment, darting back while shooting a round of star bits at Luma instead. _Now why would she do that?_ Popo wondered. Nana started running over to help Popo, and ended up watching as Rosalina shot at her own teammate. At first, it appeared to be something really twisted and cruel, but when the star bits hit Luma, he got up, looking reinvigorated.

As Nana approached Popo, she told him, "Popo, we need to focus on keeping Rosalina occupied so that she doesn't have any time to choreograph the star creature's attacks."

"Wait, she's been commanding the star thingy this whole time? She hasn't even said anything yet," Popo started. "Wait, is she using her wand to do it?"

"I think so," Nana said. Rosalina and Luma were now both together in the center of the platform, and there was another moment of silence as the crowd started wondering what was about to happen. The four combatants were at a standstill, each ready to strike, waiting for someone else to make the first move, none of them willing to give up their position in the middle of the stage. Finally, Nana and Popo charged, each swinging their hammers down upon Rosalina. Their foe was faster, though, knocking both of them back with as powerful spin attack, but they both managed to roll back onto their feet instead falling down. They went in for a second attack, except Nana started a second before Popo. Rosalina sent Luma at Nana, causing it to go in with a very quick tackle, but Nana saw the attack coming, and bashed Luma into the ground, before hitting it back to the edge of the platform with a golf-like swing. Rosalina blasted star bits at Popo, who was barely able to block with his hammer. The young boy stepped back, letting Nana step in instead. Nana was able to smack Rosalina towards Popo, who then hit the princess back at Nana, and the two continued doing so until Popo noticed Luma rushing back over them, at which point he hit Rosalina off to the side, sending her careening over the edge of the platform, having taken quite the beating from the Ice Climbers. Luma swerved over to help Rosalina, dashing off the platform. There was a gasp as everyone wondered what was going on. The Ice Climbers ran over to the edge, peering down the chasm below.

They both fell back as Rosalina soared upward sans Luma. She landed gently at the center of the platform, eliciting a roar of approval from the bleachers. Nana and Popo started running over to their foe, who didn't seem to be even slightly worried about Luma's sudden disappearance. No one wasted any time, and Rosalina was already starting to fire off her star bits. Nana and Popo continued charging regardless, Nana moving her hammer to block the star bits. As the two came close to their foe, Rosalina started moving away from the two, a highly distinct change from her previous tactics.

"The star creature must've been her lifeline, otherwise she wouldn't be so careful," Nana noted. The two came to a halt, instead deciding to come up with a new strategy, and they started talking with each other, keeping wary eyes on Rosalina, who seemed to be using the opportunity to space tai chi.

"Are you sure she isn't just being careful because of how much damage we did the last time we managed to hit her? Also, what in the world is she doing?" Popo asked. Rosalina was waving her wand in a seemingly random manner, the purpose of it unknown.

"It doesn't really matter, honestly. We know for sure that she's a lot weaker without the star creature at her side, which means that we can get a lot more offensive," Nana replied. "Of course, we also have to be careful, because that spin attack of hers is pretty powerful, and we're also quite battered at this point-"

"And that means that the smash ball is going to appear soon, unless if Master Hand has lost his touch," Popo said, finishing Nana's sentence. Rosalina had turned her back on the Ice Climbers, hiding her wand waving from the two.

Nana punched Popo on the shoulder, angrily whispering, "That was a terrible pun, and you know it."

Rosalina slowed down her wand, having fooled the Ice Climbers into thinking she wasn't doing anything. She slowly traced out a star in the air, leaving a star bit floating at each of the five points. When she finished, she looked behind her, checking to make sure the Ice Climbers were still talking at the center of the platform. To her surprise, they weren't. Instead, they were both charging straight at her. She waved her hand out at the star bits, sending them flying over to the bleachers. She started swinging her wand, hoping to bat away her foes as they approached, but they both started hitting blocks of ice at her, forcing her to dodge away. She was forced to run around at the edge of the platform, desperately trying not to get hit off.

From the bleachers, one of the lumas started flying over as the star bits approached. Nana saw the luma approaching, and took a few seconds to wait for the creature to come closer. She threw down a small hook into the ground, which had a length of rope attached to it. Popo didn't even notice, continuing their assault on Rosalina. As the luma got closer, oblivious to Nana's newfound scheme, it didn't notice Nana leaping off the platform in its direction until she had already spiked it downwards, sending it down into the inky blackness below the stage. Nana was now hanging below the stage, using the hook to hold all of her weight. She started climbing back up, hoping that Rosalina wouldn't have any more tricks up her sleeve, and that she would be able to get back up to the platform before the smash ball appeared.

Popo continued firing blocks of ice at Rosalina, but she was starting to fire star bits back at him, and those were much harder to dodge. He started to wonder why Nana wasn't firing any ice blocks, but he couldn't afford to look away from his target. He noticed Rosalina suddenly get very angry, her poker face turned into a scowl so deep it made Popo want to run as far away as possible.

"Fine then, if you want to fight like that, then so shall I," Rosalina snarled, finally speaking. She started firing star bits more rapidly, and to Popo, it looked her aim had just gotten very bad. Unbeknownst to Popo, however, was that she was actually aiming at the smash ball which had appeared in the center of the stage. It was floating all over the place, and it took a while for Popo to even realize that his opponent wasn't actually aiming at him anymore. He chanced a look behind him, and saw the smash ball. Then he saw the hook at the edge of the stage, and realized what had caused Rosalina to get so angry. Nana got back up on the stage, just in time to see Rosalina break the smash ball.

Rosalina was able to summon another luma, this time without needing to use her long ritual. The luma flew over to her, and transformed into a launch star, which Rosalina used to blast up and away from the stage, where she started floating above the stage, far out of either of her foes' reach.

As she was blasting off, she said in an unnaturally loud and echoey voice, "This is the power of the cosmos."

"What's she talking about?" Popo asked Nana. They had both suddenly gotten very tense, not knowing what to expect as Rosalina's final smash.

"How exactly am I supposed to know?" Nana replied.

She got her answer, though, as a hungry luma flew down to the stage. Neither Nana nor Popo knew what to make of the giant luma, who was wielding two wands that each had a star bit on the end.

Rosalina suddenly started firing star bits, her wand acting like a machine gun of the cosmos. At first, she was aiming at the oversized purple luma, who was gobbling the star bits, its size increasing at an alarming rate. After a few seconds, Rosalina started changing the path of the star bits, aiming them at Nana and Popo, who started running off to the side. The hungry luma followed the beam of star bits, moving towards its feast. The Ice Climbers made a mistake, though, and got themselves cornered at the edge of the stage, having run straight across the middle of the stage, instead of sticking to running around the edge. The enormous giant luma was able to continue its feast, its size still increasing, until it closed its mouth, preparing to finish the final smash.

"That's it… Now I think I'm gonna TRANSFOOOOORM," the hungry luma squealed with joy. It started swirling into a ball of light, and then it created an explosion of cosmic energy, the blast sending the Ice Climbers out of the stage, sending them hurtling past the boundary. Rosalina landed gently back on the stage, taking a bow at her victory. The crowd erupted into a mix cheers for Rosalina and empathetic tears for the Ice Climbers, who were now officially out of the tournament.

!Shift Scene!

"Hey, maybe next time you'll get back into the tournament, guys," Luke said, trying to make his roommates feel better. Everyone had already returned to their rooms, trying to console those who had lost their spots in the tournament, and congratulating all the newcomers.

"At the very least, we can still stay here until we figure out what to do next," Popo said. Nana and Popo were just sulking, something that was very obvious compared to their usual bubbly happiness.

"Yeah, well, I'm going to bed," Ness said, too tired to even try and comfort Nana and Popo. And at that, no one could disagree with Ness's logic, so they, too, went to bed. Throughout the mansion, there was a sort of peaceful quiet as everyone started trying to sleep, the excitement of the day having taken a toll on everyone.

!Shift Scene!

The forest was shaking with tension as one man ran. He had been running for a while now. The forest let in just enough light for the man to see all the upstanding roots and the bushes waiting to trip him. He lost no time processing his surroundings: the only goal was to run, and to stay out of sight. The man had been running an investigation into some very private matters for quite some time now. The man eventually stopped, having reached the drop zone. He reached into a log, well hidden away by the bush it was inside, and reached for the phone that he was told was going to be there. He quickly found it, and immediately hit the only button on the phone, starting a recording.

"Hello? Is this thing working?" the man said into the phone. "Okay. I still haven't figured out what the person of interest is, or what they're planning, but whatever their plan is, they've gone to great lengths to hide whatever it is. So far, though, I think they might have attempted to crash the Halberd into Skyloft. I suspect that they were involved in more than just that one event, but I believe you would be better suited to investigating that, given your place in the center of all the various worlds. Ask around, and I bet you'll come across something worthwhile." The man heard a rustling that sounded far away: someone was coming. "At the moment, I'm investigating the kokiri lead. I don't know when I'll next be able to send an update. Hershel out." He stopped the recording, and put the phone back into the log, knowing that the message would send on its own. Then, he took a brief moment to adjust his top hat, before running out into the woods.

Author's notes:

Poor Ice Climbers, now they're out of the tournament. By the way, Rosalina probably won't be the only one with a different fighting style, so you'll probably see that later. Also, all the characters from Smash 4 are in the tournament, even though I didn't actually list them all.

And then there's Hershel. I'll let you guys draw your own conclusions on that.

Again, sorry for taking so long on this chapter. I'm not going to make any promises, though.

Finally, if there are any characters you really want to see in the story, just tell, either in a PM, or a review. I already have some ideas for who will and won't be included, but only a few. I mostly mean characters that the heroes of this story will encounter as they start doing more stuff, not just in the tournament, but also outside of the tournament. I already have the basic ideas for encounters with Maker Mario, the Inklings, and BotW Link, but other ideas are welcome as well.

Next chapter will be focusing on the kokiri lead that was mentioned at the end of the chapter, in case you were wondering.


End file.
